Getting Started with Mappinest

Platform Overview

Mappinest is a developer-focused map platform that simplifies hosting uploaded tilesets, managing editable datasets, and delivering available map styles through simple URLs. It supports MBTiles and PMTiles tileset uploads, along with GeoJSON and JSON dataset uploads.

Tilesets are typically generated using several different approaches. Many teams upload raw data to Mapbox or MapTiler cloud services for automated processing. Others generate MBTiles locally using tools like Tippecanoe, GDAL or Planetiler, then host or distribute them directly. With the development of the PMTiles format, tile hosting has become significantly cheaper and simpler, often requiring nothing more than a CDN. If you host PMTiles directly on a CDN, access control is not strictly required. PMTiles reduces infrastructure, but it does not remove operational responsibility.

Editable datasets usually follow a different workflow. GeoJSON stores complete vector features and their properties in a JSON document, which makes it useful for datasets that need to remain editable. Teams often store this data in a spatial database such as PostGIS or expose it through a custom API, then manage validation, revisions, and publishing themselves.

Mappinest adds caching, access control, analytics, and usage limits for teams that need access and cost control, and the ability to manage who uses which tilesets, datasets, and maps. Mappinest combines tileset hosting, dataset management, and map styles into a single URL-based platform with zero-infrastructure management for storage, caching, and access control. It's a practical solution for devs who want to ship maps faster.

Why Mappinest exists

Mappinest was built to eliminate the DevOps burden of running map infrastructure. Think of it as zero-infra management for hosting geospatial data, tiles, and map styles in production.

Self-hosting map infrastructure usually means:

• managing PMTiles or MBTiles storage
• running a reliable server for planet-scale tile generation
• running, securing, and backing up a spatial database such as PostGIS
• designing and maintaining map styles
• hosting sprites, fonts, and glyphs for map styles
• configuring CDN + other caching layers
• uploading and organizing geospatial datasets
• handling access control yourself
• tracking usage across tilesets, datasets, and map styles
• debugging performance under load

Core concepts

These are the main building blocks used throughout the docs and API examples.

• Tileset

  Your hosted tileset (MBTiles / PMTiles), served as raster or vector tiles.

• Dataset

  An editable, revisioned collection of vector features. Upload GeoJSON or draw features in Dataset Studio, then read the published revision through the Dataset API.

• Style

  In most map clients, you initialize a Map by attaching it to a container and providing either a StyleJSON URL or explicit tile sources. A StyleJSON document defines sources, layers, and visual rules, and it can reference raster tiles like /{z}/{x}/{y}.png or vector tiles like /{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf. For vector basemaps, those layers often roughly follow the OpenMapTiles schema.

• API key

  Controls which tilesets, maps, and datasets an API key can access. Authentication uses the key query parameter, such as ?key=YOUR_MAPPINEST_KEY.

• URL-first architecture

  Tilesets, maps, datasets, and other metadata are consumed through standard URL templates with ?key= access control, not SDK-specific client libraries. The same endpoints plug directly into web and mobile map libraries and desktop GIS tools.

What Mappinest provides

What to read next

• Quickstart (5 min): show a map using a style or tiles>
• Dataset API: upload, create or edit datasets>
• Maps API: use available map styles>
• Tiles API: host your own data>