We Draw Our Own Maps Now

For years, putting a map on a website or a mobile app has followed one habit: sign up with a provider, get an API key, accept the per-request bill. We broke that habit. At Hitit Medya, our web design and mobile app services now run on our own map system.

It is called Hitit Medya Maps. Our engineering team built it on OpenStreetMap data, styled it with map skins we designed ourselves, and distributes it worldwide on Cloudflare infrastructure. This article explains why we built it, how it works, and why we opened it to everyone.

30-SECOND SUMMARY

We needed maps in so many projects that building our own network became the sensible move. The stack sits on open OpenStreetMap data, renders through 13 map styles we designed, and is served worldwide from Cloudflare storage and edge network. Our clients no longer deal with API keys, quotas or surprise invoices. Directions buttons still link to Google Maps, because routing is a separate craft. Everything else about the map runs on Hitit Medya Maps. And the system is open to everyone, not just our clients: free for up to 10,000 map loads a day.

Why Hitit Medya Built Its Own Map Network

The answer is boringly simple: we needed maps constantly. Project locations on real estate portals, travel routes on tourism sites, store finders on corporate sites, field team tracking on logistics dashboards, delivery zones in e-commerce. Nearly every other project asked for a map layer.

When a need repeats that often, you build it instead of renting it. Depending on a third-party map API squeezed us from three directions:

Cost was unpredictable. The more successful a client's site became, the bigger the invoice. One campaign, one news feature, one viral post, and the monthly map bill multiplied.
Design was constrained. We could only customize as far as the provider allowed. A quiet, characterful map that matched a brand palette was often simply not possible.
Control was not ours. Pricing, quotas and terms could change overnight, and our client's product would feel it.

Building our own system removed all three. But the real gain is this: a system you build yourself is always more manageable and more improvable. Adding a layer, changing a style, refreshing the data, measuring performance, all of it is now in our hands.

Manageability

Every link in the chain is ours, from data to style, from tile serving to caching. When something breaks, we are not waiting in a support queue.

Predictable cost

No per-request billing. Traffic growth does not punish our client's budget. Infrastructure cost stays flat and low.

Design freedom

The map is part of the product, not a foreign rectangle on the page. It follows the brand palette and the character we choose.

The Stack: OpenStreetMap Data, Our Own Styles

Hitit Medya Maps is founded on OpenStreetMap, an openly licensed geographic dataset woven by hundreds of thousands of volunteers worldwide. Roads, buildings, coastlines, place names, parks. In cities and populated regions it competes with commercial alternatives and in many places surpasses them.

Our engineering team built a vector tile architecture on top of that data. The map is not rendered as an image on a server and shipped down; it is shipped as data and drawn in the browser. The drawing is done by the open source MapLibre GL. Two nice consequences follow: the map is crisp on every screen, and its appearance is entirely under our control.

What decides the appearance is the style. We designed 13 of them: clean light and dark bases, quiet canvases for data visualization, no-labels and labels-only layers, versions with Turkish place names. And one signature: Antique Map, known in Turkish as Piri Reis. With aged vellum texture, sepia ink coastlines, a compass rose and rhumb lines, it turns live OpenStreetMap data into a chart from the age of exploration.

One note: OpenStreetMap data is licensed under ODbL and attribution is mandatory. That is why the © OpenStreetMap credit stays visible in the corner of every map we produce. We do not offer an option to remove it, because it belongs to the volunteers who mapped your street.

Cloudflare: Fast Access From Anywhere in the World

The hard part of map infrastructure is not the data, it is distribution. Try serving tiles from a server in Istanbul to a visitor in Tokyo and the map stutters as it loads.

So we keep all of our map data in Cloudflare storage and serve it through Cloudflare's global edge network. Wherever the visitor is, the map reaches them from the geographically nearest Cloudflare location. Istanbul, Berlin, Sao Paulo or Singapore, it makes no difference.

This choice carries a second benefit: this Cloudflare layer charges no egress fees. However many times our maps are viewed, the bandwidth bill does not grow. That is precisely what makes the cost predictable.

13

Map styles we designed ourselves

10,000

Free map loads per day

0

API keys, tokens, quota dashboards

Our Partners Never Hit a Map Limit

Brands that work with us do not deal with map quotas, key management or surprise invoices. We build store finders, project location pages and choropleth maps of regional data, and in none of them does the client need to sign up with a map provider, attach a credit card or watch a quota meter.

It looks like a technical detail but it is a commercial relief. The client is not penalized for being successful.

Google Maps for Directions, Hitit Medya Maps for Everything Else

Here we made an honest engineering choice, and we do not hide it.

Turn by turn directions are a completely separate discipline from drawing a map. They need a routing engine, traffic data and a navigation experience. On top of that, users want to set off with the app already on their phone, the one they trust. That is why the "Get directions" buttons on the sites we build usually link to Google Maps. We do not force the user.

But the map itself, meaning display, embedding, styling, location pages, data visualization and every process involving external map sources, runs on Hitit Medya Maps. The right tool for the right job.

Open to Everyone: Free up to 10,000 Loads a Day

We did not keep this system for our own clients. The style gallery is open to all at hititmedya.com/osm, where you can preview all 13 styles live and copy the embed code or the style URL straight into your own site.

Our fair use policy is plain: free for up to 10,000 map loads a day. A map load means a map opening on a page. If your traffic runs above that, get in touch and we will scale it together. We ask for no API key, no credit card, not even a sign-up. Our only condition is that the attribution in the corner of the map stays visible.

Four Engineers, a Global Ambition

This infrastructure was built by Hitit Medya's four-person software engineering team. From the data pipeline to the style generation scripts, from edge distribution to browser performance, we wrote and measured every layer ourselves.

The reason was not only cost or design. We wanted to keep, in house, the capability to build the most demanding map-based products. Today we can build a location-heavy real estate platform, a field team tracking dashboard or a tourism discovery experience entirely on our own stack.

Our ambition does not stop here. Hitit Medya wants to sign map and web products that are cited as references not only in Turkey but around the world. The gallery you are reading about is the first step on that road.

Free · No Signup

Try our maps on your own site

Preview all 13 styles live and copy the embed code. No API key, no quota dashboard, free for up to 10,000 map loads a day.

01Map Style GalleryLive previews, embed codes and style URLs→02Map Development ServiceBranded maps, location pages and data visualization→

All styles are free for commercial use.

Frequently Asked Questions

01What exactly is Hitit Medya Maps?

It is our own map infrastructure, built on open OpenStreetMap data. We keep the data as vector tiles in Cloudflare storage, serve it from the Cloudflare edge network, and render it in the browser with styles we designed. It is the same system we use in our web design and mobile app projects, now open to everyone.

02Why not just use an off-the-shelf map service?

We used to. But as our map needs grew, three problems grew with them: unpredictable per-request cost, limited design freedom, and quotas controlled by the provider. Building our own system solved all three and made the infrastructure improvable.

03Why do directions still go to Google Maps?

Because routing is an engineering field separate from drawing a map, requiring its own routing engine, traffic data and navigation experience. Users also prefer to set off with the app already on their phone. So our directions buttons link to Google Maps, while displaying, embedding and styling the map runs on Hitit Medya Maps.

04What is the free usage limit?

Free for up to 10,000 map loads a day. One load means the map opening on a page. We ask for no sign-up, no API key and no credit card. If your traffic runs above that limit, get in touch and we will size a plan for your usage. The only condition is that the OpenStreetMap attribution in the map corner stays visible.

05How often is the map data updated?

We refresh our map data on a regular monthly cycle. New roads, buildings and place names added by the OpenStreetMap community flow into our maps with that refresh. There is no service interruption during the update.

Sources and References

OpenStreetMap Copyright and License

The license and attribution terms of the open data our maps are built on.

MapLibre GL

The open source vector map renderer that draws our maps in the browser.

Cloudflare Storage

The object storage layer with no egress fees where we keep our map data.

#Maps

We Use Our Own Map System in Our Web Design and Mobile App Services

#Maps

We Use Our Own Map System in Our Web Design and Mobile App Services