Best Mapping Service in 2023?

[tpm231030]

Bumping this back up, I have used Gaia now for a few years with no complaints. My buddy has gohunt. My question is more geared toward the accuracy of the property lines and boundaries. I’ve noticed with Gaia that my property lines and public land lines don’t line up very well where I’ll be hunting. Has anyone compared the accuracy of these two layers to the actual lines? Has anyone found any discrepancies between the mapping app and actual lines/corners. I know not everything is perfect with these apps, but I’d like to feel confident in what I’m looking at. Also, say you are trying to recover a wounded animal that crosses the line. Gaia isn’t great for landowner info, would onx be preferred here? What all info is given with landowners? Thanks in advance and best wishes.

I use multiple apps during my hunt and carry printed maps as well. This past season I used GoHunt and did not find any discrepancies in their layers (including private land layers). There was some reduced functionality in offline mode (being unable to click on a layer to review metadata), but overall performed well for what I got it for. That said, some of the functionality that GAIA/COTREX has for route calcuations is in my opinion better than what the hunting apps allow, at least route planning on established forrest service routes. Bottom line, I would not abandon GAIA altogether but still get a hunting-specific app. If you don't want to maintain the the GAIA account, reduce your account to the free version and cache the maps you'll need before heading into the back country (if you're in Colorado, COTREX has very similar interface to GAIA and you can actually download offline maps with a free account).

 

[MojaveJim]

Been using OnX for the last few years, trying out Spartan Forge now. seems to do what I use OnX for and is a lot less $$$. But I still prefer a good topo of my area & haven't adopted the full electronic life, so my opinion probably doesn't matter.

 

[quondam24]

I tried OnX, didn't like it. Too many problems with response on my iPhone.

 

[Revoa4]

OnX is king. Gaia desktop is still free I think.

 

[Bergy-Bowsmith]

this may be a popular or unpopular opinion but here's my take on it based on what I've used ( OnX, GoHunt, BaseMaps, Spartan Forge)

so far OnX wins hands down . plain and simple.

I used base maps most of the 2022 season and it worked phenomenal , however my bigest gripe was not the maps themselves cuz the maps are actually pretty nice on base maps. my gripe was how annoying it was to drop pins. and go through jumping through hoops to place a pin and move on. grinded my gears. but over all the price is right on base maps and its a stellar option if you can get past the little things. at $34.99 a year I keep it as a back up.

spartan forge, I used it on one scouting trip in the Midwest and that was the end of the road for me. my biggest concern is that when pairing this up with another map you could easily cross boundaries and not know it with spartan forge as some of the public lands are not properly marked or match the public lands on the other 3 applications. i know that they are working on this but this is just my experience when it comes to that. so it was a immediate no from me.

GoHunt. man this one I was excited for , I've been a insider for years and was excited to get all my insider benefits plus a app along with it for mapping, I used this mapping almost all summer 2023 and was pretty happy with it. it has some tweaks to be made on it for sure but over all an awesome interface. Right around July they pushed an update for the app, and everything went downhill from there for me. i reached out to tech support multiple times and they compensated me appropriately. but there were times when i would be out and about and my layers would be working just fine, and then id put my phone away and a hour later or so pull it out and none of my layers would show up none of my pins etc. etc. the gohunt team was very helpful and gave some good advice but I expressed my opinion on some of the advice, especially pertaining to uninstalling and reinstalling the app to fix my issue. if i had to do that in the field with no service, and no back up active mapping system. id be screwed. even though the gohunt app has been great and frustrating all at once. I'm going to continue to be a insider member, so ill have the mapping regardless. and periodically check back in and see what features are added or what has been improved on.

OnX , I used OnX for about 4 years back when it was like $40 a year for the pro . and went away from the platform when they increased their prices, mostly because they didn't have the features to justify the price point that they had at the time. so I switched to BaseMaps, which I still think for the price base maps is the best bang for your buck. if you can handle the pain in the rear dropping a pin is. However, i stayed away from OnX for 4-5 years roughly . and decided on the fathers day promo to give it a go again and see if any features had changed, and to see if it was worth my dollar. I was pleasantly taken back when i saw that the entire interface was new compared to what I was using , and adding and removing layers was fairly straight forward and simple. their offline mapping became more streamlined, and they added 3D maps which I love having that feature on my handheld device. overall i thought for the price it was well worth the cost. but based on my prior experiences with other brands i had to test how reliable in the field it is. since base maps was the only one that performed flawless in the field everytime so far. OnX didnt skip a beat and worked phenomenal in the field, and i even ten to over save and download offline maps. and tend to have alot of layers and pins active at one time. OnX ran flawless. it is bac to being my go to mapping system with basemaps has the backup .