topic Re: Avenza Alternative in GIS Life Discussions

Avenza Alternative

BrettFrahm — Thu, 07 May 2026 14:44:23 GMT

As Avenza was recently acquired, they will be pivoting the platform towards GIS professionals instead of the general public. They are not longer accepting updates to maps on the store and plan to eventually close the map store entirely. Avenza has been a great resource for Three Rivers Park District and many other entities to host geo-referenced PDFs for the public to purchase/use on their mobile devices with relative ease.

What alternatives are people considering or are you planning to drop any geo-pdf offerings?

Re: Avenza Alternative

JamesBedortha — Fri, 08 May 2026 20:43:09 GMT

just use fieldmaps

Re: Avenza Alternative

BrettFrahm — Fri, 08 May 2026 23:02:42 GMT

Our staff does, but I would never direct the public to use Field Maps to view one of our park maps on. We have web maps that people can access on their browser, but the simplicity of Avenza is what made it useful. No internet connection required, view your location, and PDF maps are easier for a user to navigate/read than a web map.

Re: Avenza Alternative

LindsayRaabe_FPCWA — Tue, 12 May 2026 00:58:41 GMT

Why wouldn't you direct the public to use Field Maps now that it also works with GeoPDF's and you don't need to sign in to use it?

The main downside or missing feature is the ability to capture data and export to something like KMLs or Shapefiles from Field Maps (see these ideas - Export Field Maps Markup to KML - Esri Community and Create markup features from GPS location - Esri Community)

Re: Avenza Alternative

BrettFrahm — Tue, 12 May 2026 13:34:11 GMT

I'll check out the GeoPDF capability and test. Didn't know they had that, thanks.