How to generate tiles from OSM?

NOTE

If you don't need custom tiles, you can download pre-built planet tiles from the official VersaTiles distribution instead - it's much faster.

This guide explains how to generate Shortbread vector tiles from OpenStreetMap data using the versatiles-planetiler Docker image. The image bundles Planetiler, the Shortbread profile, and VersaTiles for packaging the result.

Requirements

• Docker
• Sufficient disk space - planet requires ~400 GB free
• Sufficient RAM - at least half the size of the source .osm.pbf (planet: ~64 GB)

Step 1: Create a working directory

mkdir -p result

The container stores downloaded sources, temporary files, and the final output inside this directory.

Step 2: Run the Docker image

docker run -it --rm \
  --mount="type=bind,source=$(pwd)/result,target=/app/data" \
  versatiles/versatiles-planetiler \
  --area "planet" \
  --checksum

The --checksum flag writes .md5 and .sha256 sidecar files next to the output.

Common --area values:

Region	--area value
Planet	planet
Europe	europe
Germany	germany
Berlin	berlin

Any Geofabrik region path works as an area value.

Step 3: Find the output

Once complete, the result is in result/result/:

result/
└── result/
    ├── osm.planet.2026-06-22.versatiles
    ├── osm.planet.2026-06-22.versatiles.md5
    └── osm.planet.2026-06-22.versatiles.sha256

The filename is auto-generated as osm[.<area>].<date>.versatiles.

Optional flags

Add land cover data - merges natural land cover into the tile layers:

  --landcover

Choose output format (default: versatiles):

  --format pmtiles   # or: versatiles, mbtiles

Set a custom output name:

  --name "my-tiles"

Limit JVM heap size (useful when RAM is constrained):

  --xmx 20g

Next steps

Once you have a .versatiles file, you can run a local server or deploy it to serve tiles.