Cesium VS OpenLayers3

Compare Cesium vs OpenLayers3 and see what are their differences.

Cesium

An open-source JavaScript library for world-class 3D globes and maps :earth_americas: (by CesiumGS)
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Cesium OpenLayers3
10 59
11,688 10,784
1.8% 1.3%
9.9 9.9
9 days ago 9 days ago
JavaScript JavaScript
Apache License 2.0 BSD 2-clause "Simplified" License
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

Cesium

Posts with mentions or reviews of Cesium. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2022-09-27.

OpenLayers3

Posts with mentions or reviews of OpenLayers3. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-03-04.
  • Handling files in enterprise web solutions
    3 projects | dev.to | 4 Mar 2024
    In order to display the GeoJSON features on a map, we will use OpenLayers, which is a very powerful open-source mapping library that is also very simple to use.
  • 5 JavaScript mapping APIs compared
    4 projects | dev.to | 13 Feb 2024
    OpenLayers is a modular, high-performance library designed for displaying and interacting with maps and geospatial data. It is a free, open-source JS library released under the 2-Clause BSD License, facilitating the creation of interactive and feature-rich web maps.
    4 projects | dev.to | 13 Feb 2024
    OpenLayers is available via the ol npm package, offering developers a powerful toolkit for creating sophisticated maps. Here is a JavaScript implementation that utilizes OpenLayers to showcase a map:
  • 12 Open Source GIS Software
    5 projects | /r/u_Long-Experience8779 | 26 May 2023
    Official Website: https://openlayers.org/
  • I'm a senior in my CS major and it's incredible I didn't hear about GIS projects until now. Glad to be here.
    2 projects | /r/gis | 22 May 2023
    For web maps I'd strongly recommend using OpenLayers. While it's less convenient to get started with compared to the alternatives it's also much more feature-complete and you'll likely hit a ceiling in terms of functionality much later than you would with the others.
  • Understanding the need of Node.js and NPM
    2 projects | /r/webdev | 15 Feb 2023
  • What do Jr Devs who get hired ACTUALLY know these days? And how proficient are they?
    2 projects | /r/webdev | 24 Jan 2023
    Sticking with the roofing theme, you could make an application that shows shingle delivery truck drivers their stops on a map. It would be cool if the user could click on the stop and move it through varying statuses such as pending, en-route, completed or canceled, view the items in the order, and have it send your user a message when the statuses change. It might also be kinda cool if you could allow the delivery driver to start their shift, break for lunch, and end their day. You could have manager users that could log into your site too and export the timesheets for all or a subset of the drivers. You could even use something like d3.js or chart.js to give the managers insights into driver productivity. Some of the data may have to be mocked but it could be a fun project. After a brief search I found this https://openlayers.org open source js map library that could be cool to work with. In the past I have worked with the google maps api which wasn’t terrible. Make sure to set up some testing and a CI/CD pipeline. While not strictly required I think it would go along way to demonstrate that you are well rounded and will prepare you for working with them in the industry.
  • Amazon Location Service and AWS Amplify to Use Various Map Library
    8 projects | dev.to | 5 Jan 2023
    I will build a location-based application using and comparing three open-source map libraries: MapLibre GL JS, OpenLayers, and Leaflet.
  • Self Hosting a Google Maps Alternative with OpenStreetMap
    17 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 22 Nov 2022
    Seems like MapTiler is maintaining an open source full stack vector alternative, and OpenLayers[0] looks good as well, so maybe it's time for legacy libraries to add vector support, or for users to switch libraries? There's even bindings from Maplibre GL to Leaflet [1].

    I at least would find it interesting to see the two compared by someone other than me ;).

    [0] https://openlayers.org/

    [1] https://github.com/maplibre/maplibre-gl-leaflet

  • Driving heat map through vehicle telematics
    2 projects | /r/gis | 8 Oct 2022
    If you decide to go the web based route; openlayers is a pretty solid library for doing maps on the web and has support for building custom controls like the route toggle you describe.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Cesium and OpenLayers3 you can also consider the following projects:

Leaflet - 🍃 JavaScript library for mobile-friendly interactive maps 🇺🇦

mapbox.js - Mapbox JavaScript API, a Leaflet Plugin

maplibre-gl-js - MapLibre GL JS - Interactive vector tile maps in WebGL2

terriajs - A library for building rich, web-based geospatial data platforms.

vue3-openlayers - Web map Vue 3.x components with the power of OpenLayers

maplibre-native - MapLibre Native - Interactive vector tile maps for iOS, Android and other platforms.

gmaps - the easiest way to use Google Maps

cesium - An open-source JavaScript library for world-class 3D globes and maps :earth_americas: [Moved to: https://github.com/CesiumGS/cesium]

VTS Browser JS - JavaScript WebGL 3D map rendering engine

jqvmap - jQuery Vector Map Library