The Map Layers sidebar offers two new featured layers based on vector tile technology:
| Featured layer | Renderer | Style | Tile host | Tile configuration | Tile generator | Tile schema |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shortbread | maplibre-gl-leaflet | VersaTiles Colorful  or Eclipse  |
OSMF OWG | Spirit Shortbread | Tilekiln | Shortbread |
| MapTiler OMT | maplibre-gl-leaflet | OSM OpenMapTiles | MapTiler | MapTiler | OpenMapTiles | OpenMapTiles |
Both of the new featured layers represents a whole technology stack separate from the ones that power the existing raster map layers. They even mix and match software that wasn’t originally designed to work with each other. If until now you thought a vector map is something from linear algebra, this probably represents more complexity that you’re used to. For comparison, here’s what an analogous stack looks like for a raster layer:
| Featured layer | Renderer | Style | Tile host | Tile configuration | Tile generator | Tile schema |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | Leaflet | OSM Carto | OSMF OWG | OSM Carto | Mapnik | OSM Carto |
| Humanitarian | Leaflet | HDM | OSM France | HDM | Mapnik | HDM |
In that setup, the style – what mappers often call “the renderer” – is where most of the action happens, while the other components are relatively mature. A vector map has more moving parts in different places, requiring coordination between multiple teams of developers, and a lot of these components are in active development with lots of room for improvement.
The following table gives some likely starting points for certain kinds of issues as a rule of thumb. However, what looks like a simple issue could turn out to be a series of unfortunate events scattered up and down the stack. So if you spot an issue in one of the new featured layers, it may be due to a limitation “upstream”, as developers like to say. Please be patient with them as they sort out what’s blocking a fix.
| Component | Example issue |
|---|---|
| Device | “Vector map tiles are displaying very slowly” “Fan of my laptop scared cat on alley outside” (vector tiles are expected to require more resources to render in browser than raster tiles) |
| Renderer | “The map is glitching on my phone but not my computer.” “Vertical Japanese writing looks garbled.” |
| Style | “Paths need more contrast against woods.” “The icon for fast food doesn’t look delicious enough.” “The font is too small.” “Trunk roads are present in the tiles at z10 but aren’t visible.” |
| Tile host | “The tiles take too long to download.” “I mapped this road an hour ago but it hasn’t shown up yet.” “My website can’t access the tiles.” |
| Tile configuration | “The schema says highway=path2 should be in the tiles but it isn’t.” “Roads are disconnected at tile edges.” |
| Tile schema | “highway=path2 should be in the tiles.” “Trunk roads should be in the tiles at lower zoom levels.” |