What is the difference between the uMap DE, CH, and FR instances?

uMap is one software project, but it is offered through several instances run by different OpenStreetMap organisations. The main practical differences shown on the project site are anonymous usage and real-time collaboration: the DE instance (OpenStreetMap Germany) has anonymous usage activated and real-time collaboration activated; the CH instance (OpenStreetMap Switzerland) and the FR instance (OpenStreetMap France) both have anonymous usage activated but real-time collaboration deactivated. If you need several people editing the same map live, DE is the instance to pick; if you only need to create and publish a map, any of the three works.

The three instances side by side

All three are presented in the same “Choose an instance” window on umap-project.org, so the choice is made before you start building, not after.

What each difference actually means

Anonymous usage

On all three instances anonymous usage is activated. In practice this means you can start creating a map without first registering an account — the site’s own user quotes describe uMap as a tool that “doesn’t require any account” and lets you build an interactive map through a graphical interface without coding. This is a property shared by DE, CH and FR, so it is not a reason to prefer one over another.

Real-time collaboration

This is the only functional difference the site flags between the instances. Real-time collaboration is the feature that lets two or more people work on the same map at the same time — the instance chooser illustrates it with a “two people side by side” icon for DE, and a “person with a cross in the background” for CH and FR.

• Choose DE if your use case involves a group editing one map simultaneously — for example a classroom exercise, a workshop, or a team mapping session.
• Choose CH or FR if you are working alone or your collaborators can take turns; you lose live co-editing but keep everything else.

How to choose

1. Decide whether live multi-user editing is required for your map.
2. If yes, select the DE instance in the “Choose an instance” window.
3. If no, pick the instance closest to your context — CH for Switzerland-related work, FR for France-related work — or simply the one you prefer, since anonymous creation is available on all three.
4. Proceed to “Create a map” on the instance you selected.

What is the same across instances

The underlying uMap project is the same everywhere. It is described as free “as in speech and beer”, open-source since day one, with 10+ years of improvements, 60+ contributors, and a current release of 3.4.2 (2025-11-26). The site reports 190,194 user accounts, 1,561,209 maps created, and 9,890 edited maps per week across the project. Feature-wise, the documented use cases — drawing lines and polygons, importing information layers, heatmaps, clustering, and slideshow storytelling with photos, text, sound and video — are capabilities of uMap itself rather than of a specific instance.

A note on hosting and continuity

Because DE, CH and FR are run by different OpenStreetMap organisations, the instance you choose also determines who operates the server your map lives on. The site does not state service-level guarantees, storage limits, or long-term retention policies for any instance, so if a map is business-critical, verify the current terms with the operator of that instance before relying on it.