Long gone are the days of pulling origami-like paper maps from your car’s glove box to determine your location. In contemporary times, nearly everyone has a smartphone with a first- or third-party map app that offers driving, walking, or biking directions. In fact, navigation apps are great general guides to day-to-day living, as they can highlight the cheapest gas in your area or the nearest fast food joint. But which map app is the best? We've thoroughly tested the top three contenders to help you decide.
Table of Contents
Google Maps
Best Overall
Why We Picked It
Google Maps is an absolutely indispensable modern app. Google’s nearly infinite amount of crowdsourced data gives you detailed instructions on how to get to just about anywhere in the world. You can get a closer look with Street View, download maps for offline use, and even go inside buildings.
Who It’s For
Google Maps is the top choice for navigation apps. It’s a valuable tool whether you’re on foot, in a car, or trying to figure out a subway system. It’s great on any mobile device as well as the web.
PROS
- Robust maps, with Google Earth and Street View options
- Crowdsourced, real-time traffic data
- Detailed directions for driving, public transportation, walking, and biking
- Offers internal layouts for buildings
- Web-based version
- Lets you download directions for offline use
CONS
- Google’s fuzzy privacy commitment
- Some outdated Street View images
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Real-Time Traffic | |
| Street Panoramas | |
| 3D Imagery | |
| Map Downloads | |
| Browser-Based Version |
Apple Maps
Best 3D Maps
Why We Picked It
After years of big improvements, Apple Maps is a serious contender for navigation apps. It looks fantastic, presents you with a ton of data, and does an excellent job of keeping your information private. Just note the app is only available on iOS devices.
Who It’s For
Apple Maps is for anyone who wants an alternative navigation app. While Google Maps has the edge when it comes to raw accurate data, Apple Maps has closed much of the gap. And Apple brings plenty of its own unique flair, including an amazing 3D Flyover view.
PROS
- Clean, simple maps
- Stunning 3D Flyover mode
- Doesn’t hold onto your data
- Air quality reports and temperature readings
- Offline maps
CONS
- Limited indoor maps
- Lacks an official web version
- Only on iOS and iPadOS
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Real-Time Traffic | |
| Street Panoramas | |
| 3D Imagery | |
| Map Downloads | |
| Browser-Based Version |
Waze
Best for Daily Driving
Why We Picked It
Waze is Google’s supplemental navigation app designed specifically for drivers. Clear maps help you drive to your destination. Meanwhile, custom features like traffic conditions, community support, and streaming music integration are great to have behind the wheel.
Who It’s For
Waze is the ideal navigation app for drivers, with settings as granular as what type of vehicle you drive. Its interface is less useful for other types of navigation, but Waze delivers when it comes to driving.
PROS
- Bright, colorful, easy-to-see icons
- Crowdsourced traffic conditions mean better routes
- Social connections for drivers
- Lets you manually control streaming music services
- Web-based version
CONS
- Difficult to create directions from places other than your current location
- Lacks terrain, satellite, or 3D map imagery
- No true offline options
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Real-Time Traffic | |
| Street Panoramas | |
| 3D Imagery | |
| Map Downloads | |
| Browser-Based Version |
Platform Power
The three map apps in this showdown—Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Waze—are entirely free. You don’t need to worry about additional microtransactions or ad banners.
You can access the three apps in different ways. Google’s Maps (a native Android app) and Waze (Google's driver-focused navigation app) are available in the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. Apple Maps comes preinstalled on every iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, but there’s no Google Play Store version. The app’s an Apple exclusive, automatically dropping it from contention if you’re an Android owner.
In terms of web options, you can explore Google Maps and Waze via your favorite web browser. Both services let you plan trips on the desktop before sending the directional information to their respective mobile apps. Unlike Google Maps and Waze, Apple Maps lacks a browser-based version. To make up for that, Apple released its MapKit JS code so web developers can add Apple Maps services to websites. For example, the privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo recently switched to using it for map-related searches and route planning.
Which App Is Best for Driving?
Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Waze each offer satisfactory driving directions, but differ in many ways. Google has the most extensive, information-packed maps—a boon to its Google Maps and Waze products. Apple Maps endured a rough launch over a decade ago, but has made great strides to nearly achieve parity with Google Maps. All three apps offer hands-free, voice-guided operation via Google Assistant or Siri on their respective platforms.
If driving is all you’re doing, Waze is the best option. Google Maps and Apple Maps will do just fine, but Waze is a cut above for driving to a new place from your current location. Its maps are simpler than the others, with larger icons, brighter colors, and fewer distracting on-screen items. Waze also encourages its users to crowdsource its traffic. Its avid driving community marks traffic jams, accidents, police happenings, and road closures to a much greater degree than its rivals. However, unlike Google Maps and Apple Maps, Waze doesn't offer offline maps to download.
Which App Is Best for Cyclists?
Unlike Waze, Apple Maps and Google Maps have many options for alternate modes of travel. Driving directions are first and foremost, but both apps give directions for walking, cycling, and public transit. There are even ride-sharing options that tie into popular services like Lyft and Uber.
For cyclists, Apple Maps has the leg up in terms of general user interface and features. If your phone screen shuts off, Apple Maps automatically wakes up for the next turn-by-turn direction. Google Maps has an option that prevents it from switching to lock mode during turn-by-turn directions, but if that option isn't activated, the app sends a push notification that requires you to unlock your phone. Apple Maps also clearly labels traffic lights, stop signs, and steep hills along your route for proper planning. However, cyclists have reported that Google Maps gives better results, avoiding routes with too many hills or additional traffic that would make the route difficult.
Which App Has the Best Interface?
Apple Maps and Waze offer cleaner, easier-to-read interfaces compared with Google Maps. Bar none, Waze offers the clearest overall map in terms of visual contrast and readability. Unfortunately, it’s only for drivers.
Apple places right behind Waze with a map that’s good for at-a-glance information. Major landmarks and businesses are clearly legible, and Apple's big, shiny green Go button is more immediate than Google's smaller blue Start button. Apple Maps also has useful temperature and air quality indicators.
Apple Maps matches Google Maps' business hours, ratings, and website links, but if you dive deep enough you'll discover that Google has more extensive maps. Google Maps not only covers more international locations, but it has awesome building interior maps, too. If you visit a city, Google Maps will likely have detailed internal maps (with multiple floors!) for malls, convention centers, museums, and other public-facing buildings. All that additional information means that Google Maps suffers from a somewhat cluttered interface.
For daily use, Apple Maps is easier to read, but Google Maps is a tiny, digital Athena with all the wisdom in the world—if you know where to find it.
Which App Has the Best Street View?
Besides basic mapping information, Apple Maps and Google Maps offer additional features that deftly expand the navigation experience. For a long time, Google Maps contained far more cool extras, but Apple Maps has caught up and applied a more thoughtful approach to some Google features.
Take Google Street View. This handy feature lets you drop into the map and survey the environment via 360-degree photos cobbled together from Google’s fleet of photographing cars and crowdsourced pictures. You’ll find Street View available in more places than Apple Maps’ competing Look Around feature. Look Around is easier to use, though. While Street View takes over your whole device screen, Look Around splits the view between the 360-degree photo and the map. This lets you see where you are while looking around. In terms of usability, Look Around is simply better than Street View, especially when you’re lost. Waze has no such feature.
Of course, Google countered Apple matching Street View by releasing Live View AR mode. This uses your phone’s camera for turn-by-turn directions, tapping augmented reality to project the instructions on the world in front of you. It even highlights certain landmarks. Live View takes everything great about Street View and kicks it up a notch. Apple Maps and Waze offer nothing comparable.
While Google Maps and Apple Maps both have terrain, satellite, and 3D viewing modes, Apple Maps’ Flyover 3D mode is simply more impressive than Google’s version. Flyover 3D makes select cities resemble tiny dioramas, and it’s a stunning technology display. It's cool, not yet particularly useful.
If you prize privacy, Apple Maps is the way to go. Your Apple Maps searches and directions remain on your device, not in the cloud. Apple Maps’ location history is tied to random identifiers and resets over time. Google makes it hard to scrub that information, but it is getting better. Still, if you care about privacy and have an iPhone, the choice is clear.
Mike Williams contributed to this story.
