Open Source Routing Machine (OSRM)
High-performance routing engine for OpenStreetMap data
Open Source Routing Machine (OSRM) is a high-performance routing engine written in C++ that computes routes on OpenStreetMap data. It provides a production-oriented HTTP API and can also be used as a C++ library or via Node.js bindings.
Key Features
- Fast route computation optimized for large road networks
- HTTP API services for routing, nearest-point lookup, and distance/duration matrices
- Map matching for snapping noisy GPS traces to the road network
- Trip optimization endpoint using a traveling-salesman-style heuristic
- Generates vector tiles containing internal routing metadata
- Customizable routing profiles (e.g., car, bicycle, walking)
Use Cases
- Powering turn-by-turn navigation and routing in web or mobile applications
- Batch travel-time or distance matrix generation for logistics and dispatch
- Cleaning and matching GPS tracks to roads for analytics or data processing
Limitations and Considerations
- Requires an offline preprocessing pipeline (e.g., MLD or CH) on OSM extracts before serving requests
- Custom behavior depends on maintaining Lua-based profiles and understanding OSM tagging
OSRM is a strong choice when you need low-latency routing on OpenStreetMap data with a well-established API surface. It is especially suited to backend routing services and GIS workflows that require fast, repeatable computations at scale.
Categories:
Tags:
Tech Stack:
C++
JavaScript
Lua
Docker
Python
Linux
CMake
Node.js
BashSimilar Services
Meilisearch
Fast search engine API with full-text, vector, and hybrid search
Meilisearch is a lightning-fast search engine API for apps and websites, offering typo-tolerant full-text search plus vector and AI-ready hybrid retrieval.
ArchiveBox
Open-source self-hosted web archiving and snapshotting tool
Self-hosted tool to collect and preserve webpages, media, and bookmarks in durable formats (HTML, PDF, WARC, MP4) with a CLI, web UI, and search.
Typesense
Fast, typo-tolerant search engine with keyword and vector search
Typesense is a developer-friendly search engine for instant, typo-tolerant search-as-you-type with faceting, filtering, geo search, and vector/semantic search APIs.
SearXNG
Privacy-focused metasearch engine for aggregating web results
SearXNG is a privacy-respecting metasearch engine that aggregates results from many search services without tracking or profiling users.
ZincSearch
A lightweight open-source search engine for full-text indexing.
ZincSearch is a Go-based, lightweight search engine for full-text indexing with Elasticsearch API-compatible ingestion, a Vue UI, and a schema-less document model.
Onyx Community Edition
Self-hosted AI chat and enterprise search for any LLM
Open-source platform for AI chat, RAG, agents, and enterprise search across your team’s connected knowledge sources, compatible with hosted and local LLMs.
