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GeoLibre (GitHub Repo)

GeoLibre (GitHub Repo)

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GeoLibre is a new open-source, cloud-native GIS platform that runs locally in browsers, on desktop, mobile, and inside Jupyter notebooks.
What: Developed by Qiusheng Wu, GeoLibre uses Tauri v2, React, MapLibre GL JS, and DuckDB-WASM to provide geospatial analysis across multiple platforms and planetary bodies including the Moon and Mars.
Deep dive
  • Features a 3D architecture capable of rendering building footprints and planetary maps.
  • Supports spatial SQL via DuckDB-WASM for in-browser data processing.
  • Cross-platform support includes native installers for Windows, macOS, and Linux as well as Android.
  • Designed for privacy by keeping all data processing and storage local.
  • Includes a plugin system for visual effects like atmospheric rendering.
Decoder
  • GIS (Geographic Information System): A system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present spatial or geographic data.
  • 3D Tiles: An OGC open standard for streaming massive heterogeneous 3D geospatial datasets.
  • Tauri: A framework for building desktop applications with web technologies, using a secure, lightweight binary.
Original article

GeoLibre

A free and open-source, lightweight, cloud-native GIS platform for visualizing, exploring, and analyzing geospatial data. It runs everywhere you do, in the web browser, on the desktop, on mobile, and inside Jupyter notebooks, all while keeping your data local and private.

GeoLibre is built with Tauri v2, React, TypeScript, MapLibre GL JS, DuckDB-WASM Spatial, and deck.gl. The same workspace runs as a native desktop app, a native Android app, in any modern web browser, and adapts responsively to mobile and small screens.

Demos

Click any screenshot to open it at full resolution, or any animation to play the full-quality video.

3D Tiles

GeoLibre demo showing 3D Tiles rendered on a MapLibre map

Open the live project

NYC buildings and subways

Manhattan building footprints extruded in 3D and colored by construction era, with the MTA subway lines and stations on top and a legend generated automatically from the layers' symbology.

Manhattan buildings extruded in 3D and colored by construction era, with MTA subway lines and stations and an auto-generated legend

The animation below runs the Time Slider along the buildings' construction year, from 1850 to 2025, so Manhattan fills in era by era. Click it to play the full-quality video.

Animation of Manhattan buildings appearing by construction year as the Time Slider advances from 1850 to 2025

Open the live project

Planetary basemaps

GeoLibre is not limited to Earth. Planetary basemaps from OpenPlanetaryMap and USGS Astrogeology cover the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, the Galilean moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto), Titan, Pluto, and Charon, with a per-project ellipsoid so distance, area, and scale measurements match the body you are mapping. The deep-space starfield behind each globe comes from the Atmosphere Effects plugin.

GeoLibre globe view of Earth over a starfield backdrop GeoLibre globe view of the Moon over a starfield backdrop GeoLibre globe view of Mars over a starfield backdrop
Earth Moon Mars
GeoLibre globe view of Mercury over a starfield backdrop GeoLibre globe view of Pluto over a starfield backdrop GeoLibre globe view of Venus over a starfield backdrop
Mercury Pluto Venus

Switch bodies from the planet switcher in the Layers panel. See Demos for more.

Video tutorials

Documentation

Full documentation, including the User Guide and Tutorials, is published at geolibre.app.

  • Getting Started - use GeoLibre on the web, desktop, Android, or in Jupyter; run it from source; run it with Docker; and configure optional credentials.
  • Features - the complete, feature-by-feature list of what GeoLibre can do today.
  • Demos - a visual tour: 3D Tiles, 3D city data, planetary basemaps, the SQL Workspace, and embeds.
  • Downloads - installers and package managers for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
  • User Guide - a feature-by-feature reference for the interface, adding data, layers, styling, the attribute table, map controls, processing, the SQL Workspace, data integrations, plugins, settings, and embedding.
  • Tutorials - hands-on, end-to-end workflows: your first map, cloud-native data, vector analysis, terrain analysis, spatial SQL, and sharing and embedding.

Acknowledgements

GeoLibre is built on the free and open-source geospatial and web communities — including MapLibre GL JS, deck.gl, DuckDB-WASM Spatial, Turf.js, Tauri, React, and many more. See the full Acknowledgements page for the complete list of projects and community contributors.

  • The Atmosphere Effects plugin (deep-space backdrop, parallax starfield, comets, and the globe atmosphere halo) adapts the technique and visual design from Leonel Dias's article Globe atmosphere, halo, and comets — the layered Canvas 2D approach, the halo gradient and "screen" blend, the limb-sampling that keeps the halo aligned under pitch, and the starfield/comet parameters.
  • Community contributors — thanks to Ryanphoenix for many valued contributions, including issue reports, feedback, and improvements.
  • Beta testers — thanks to René van der Velde (Netherlands) for early testing, detailed bug reports, and feature requests.

Citation

If you use GeoLibre in your work, please cite it. GeoLibre is archived on Zenodo, which mints a DOI for every release. The concept DOI below always resolves to the latest version.

Wu, Q. (2026). GeoLibre: A lightweight, cloud-native GIS platform for visualizing, exploring, and analyzing geospatial data. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20785400

License

MIT

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