The VersaTiles frontend
The server only provides vector tiles. But you need more to have an interactive web map. You also need:
- A JavaScript library like MapLibre GL JS to handle loading, drawing and user interactions.
- Styles that define how the vector tiles should be drawn.
- Fonts and symbols for labels and markers on the map.
To make it easier for you, we prepared and bundled everything in a compact, ready-to-use package.
Download the frontend
We release the frontend as a TAR file on the releases page.
Each package uses the unusual .br.tar extension inside the filename. This means the individual files inside the TAR are each pre-compressed with Brotli, so the server can stream them with minimal CPU load. The TAR container itself is not compressed (which is why .tar.br would be the wrong order).
Variants
Several variants are available to match different deployment needs:
| Variant | Size | Contents |
|---|---|---|
frontend.br.tar.gz | ~91 MB | All fonts, sprites and libraries — the standard choice |
frontend-dev.br.tar.gz | ~91 MB | The same libraries as frontend, but with a development-oriented UI |
frontend-min.br.tar.gz | ~39 MB | Like frontend, but Noto Sans only (drops the other font families) |
frontend-blank.br.tar.gz | ~89 MB | Fonts and sprites only — no JS libraries; bring your own scripts |
frontend-tiny.br.tar.gz | ~1 MB | Bare minimum: MapLibre, one style, sprites, Latin-only Noto Sans |
Each variant is also published without the inner Brotli compression, as plain *.tar.gz — useful if your server cannot serve pre-compressed files. Those are roughly 25 % larger.
To download the standard variant:
wget "https://github.com/versatiles-org/versatiles-frontend/releases/latest/download/frontend.br.tar.gz"What's included
The bundle contains:
- MapLibre GL JS — the map rendering library
- Map styles — six ready-to-use themes:
colorful,graybeard,eclipse,neutrino,shadow,satellite - Fonts (glyphs) — ten open-source typefaces prepared as SDF glyphs: Roboto, Open Sans, Noto Sans, Fira Sans, and others
- Sprites — icon sets for use with the map styles
How is it built?
We maintain the frontend in the repo: versatiles-frontend. A GitHub workflow triggers the build script. It then bundles:
- the latest version of MapLibre GL JS
- styles and sprites from the repo: versatiles-style
- fonts (glyphs) from the repo: versatiles-fonts