GeoLibre is a free and open-source GIS platform built with TypeScript that enables users to visualize, explore, and analyze geospatial data across multiple environments. The platform runs natively in web browsers, as a desktop application on Windows, macOS, and Linux, as a native Android app, and within Jupyter notebooks, all while maintaining data locality and privacy. This multi-platform capability is achieved through a unified codebase built on Tauri v2, React, TypeScript, MapLibre GL JS, DuckDB-WASM Spatial, and deck.gl, allowing the same workspace to function seamlessly across different deployment contexts.
The platform's architecture prioritizes cloud-native design principles and lightweight performance. Users can access the full application immediately through a web browser at web.geolibre.app without installation, download native installers for desktop use, or install the Android version from Google Play. The responsive design adapts to mobile and small screens, ensuring usability across device sizes. DuckDB-WASM Spatial provides in-browser spatial SQL capabilities, enabling geoprocessing operations directly in the client without server dependencies.
GeoLibre demonstrates advanced geospatial visualization capabilities through its feature set. The platform supports 3D Tiles rendering, allowing complex three-dimensional geospatial data visualization such as extruded building footprints colored by attributes and temporal animation through time sliders. The application includes planetary basemap support extending beyond Earth, with integrated basemaps from OpenPlanetaryMap and USGS Astrogeology covering the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, the Galilean moons, Titan, Pluto, and Charon. Each project can specify a per-planet ellipsoid to ensure accurate distance, area, and scale measurements for non-Earth bodies. The interface includes a planet switcher in the Layers panel for seamless celestial body navigation.
The repository includes comprehensive documentation covering installation, features, tutorials, and reference materials. Getting Started guides address web, desktop, Android, and Jupyter deployment scenarios, plus Docker containerization and optional credential configuration. A complete Features page documents capabilities, while Demos showcase practical applications including 3D city data and SQL Workspace functionality. The User Guide provides feature-by-feature interface reference covering data addition, layer management, styling, attribute tables, map controls, processing, spatial SQL, data integrations, plugins, and embedding options. Reference documentation includes architecture details, platform-specific guides for Android and iOS, project format specifications, plugin API documentation, UI profiles, internationalization support, Python package documentation for Jupyter integration, and a development roadmap.
The project acknowledges its foundation in the open-source geospatial and web communities, building upon MapLibre GL JS, deck.gl, DuckDB-WASM Spatial, Turf.js, Tauri, React, and numerous other projects. The Atmosphere Effects plugin adapts visualization techniques for deep-space backdrops, parallax starfields, and globe atmosphere halos. The repository welcomes contributions through a documented Contributing guide covering development setup and repository layout. GeoLibre is archived on Zenodo with a concept DOI for citation purposes, and is distributed under the MIT license.
