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Maps · head to head

Felt vs Lonboard

Felt logo

Felt

Maps

Collaborative browser mapping with a free non-commercial tier and annual-only paid contracts

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Lonboard logo

Lonboard

Maps

Python map rendering in Jupyter that skips GeoJSON and moves millions of features without choking

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Felt felt publishes no prices for Professional or Enterprise, so buyers cannot compare against ArcGIS Online or QGIS with hosting without entering a sales process; Lonboard it is a notebook visualisation library, not a mapping application, so there is no editing, no layout, no map export for print and no sharing beyond distributing the notebook or an HTML file
  • They diverge on capability: Felt covers Real-time collaboration, Lonboard covers GeoArrow binary transfer.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Felt and Lonboard actually diverge.

Attributes where Felt and Lonboard differ
AttributeFeltLonboard
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidLinux, macOS, Windows

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Maps).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Felt

  • Real-time collaboration
  • Drag and drop data
  • Unlimited viewers
  • Field app with offline support
  • Dashboards
  • Live cloud sources
  • API and SDK

Only in Lonboard

  • GeoArrow binary transfer
  • GeoPandas input
  • deck.gl layers
  • Jupyter widget
  • Large dataset handling
  • Styling by attribute
  • Open source licence

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Felt

  • An environmental consultancy that needs a client to view and comment on survey results without installing GIS softwarenot Lonboard
  • A utility field crew collecting asset condition offline and syncing to the same map the office is looking atnot Lonboard
  • A planning department sharing a proposal map with the public where the viewer count is unpredictable and viewer seats would be uncostednot Lonboard
  • A team of analysts who each hold data in different formats and want one map assembled in an afternoon rather than a weeknot Lonboard

Lonboard

  • An analyst exploring a national road or parcel dataset in a notebook where pydeck or ipyleaflet becomes unusable at that sizenot Felt
  • A researcher publishing a reproducible analysis where the visualisation must run from the same script as the processingnot Felt
  • A data scientist joining spatial data to model outputs in pandas and needing to see the result immediately without exporting to a GISnot Felt
  • A team building an internal analysis pipeline on GeoParquet that wants rendering without a serialisation step in the middlenot Felt

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Felt

  • Felt publishes no prices for Professional or Enterprise, so buyers cannot compare against ArcGIS Online or QGIS with hosting without entering a sales process
  • Paid tiers are annual contract only with no monthly option, which excludes consultancies that need a tool for a single short engagement and forces them to the free non-commercial tier they are not licensed to use for client work
  • The API, JavaScript SDK and live warehouse connections are enterprise-only, so a mid-sized team that wants programmatic access has to buy the top tier rather than pay for one capability
  • Analytical depth is limited: there is no meaningful geoprocessing, topology checking or model building, so Felt sits beside a real GIS rather than replacing one
  • The Professional tier caps data processing at 25 GB a month and map views at 100,000 a month, which are easy to exceed with raster imagery or a public-facing map, and the overage terms are not published either

Lonboard

  • It is a notebook visualisation library, not a mapping application, so there is no editing, no layout, no map export for print and no sharing beyond distributing the notebook or an HTML file
  • Maintenance sits with Development Seed as an open source side output of a consultancy, so roadmap priorities follow client projects and there is no support contract to buy
  • Layer coverage is a subset of deck.gl, so an analyst needing a less common layer type has to drop to pydeck or write JavaScript rather than staying in Python
  • It expects data already in GeoPandas or Arrow form, which means the performance benefit depends on the rest of your pipeline being Arrow-friendly; reading a large Shapefile is still the slow step
  • Rendering happens in the browser, so very large datasets are ultimately limited by the client machine's memory and GPU rather than by the server, and a laptop will still fail on data a workstation handles

Pricing, plan by plan

Felt

Free
  • PersonalFree
    • Free forever for non-commercial mapping
    • Map creation, upload and sharing
    • Not licensed for commercial use
  • Professional$undefined/year
    • 10 full-access seats with unlimited viewers
    • 25 GB of data processing per month
    • 100,000 map views per month
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Live cloud sources including Postgres, Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks and S3
    • REST API and JavaScript SDK
    • AI features

Lonboard

Free
  • LonboardFree
    • Open source, no licence fee
    • No usage limits
    • Installed from PyPI or conda

Which should you pick?

Choose Felt if

  • You need real-time collaboration.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want drag and drop data.
Felt review

Choose Lonboard if

  • You need geoarrow binary transfer.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want geopandas input.
Lonboard review

Questions people ask

Is Felt or Lonboard better?
Neither clearly leads. Felt starts at Free and Lonboard at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Felt or Lonboard?
Felt starts at Free and Lonboard at Free.
Does Felt or Lonboard run on more platforms?
Felt runs on Web, iOS, Android. Lonboard runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Felt for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Felt best used for?
Felt is most often used for an environmental consultancy that needs a client to view and comment on survey results without installing gis software, a utility field crew collecting asset condition offline and syncing to the same map the office is looking at, a planning department sharing a proposal map with the public where the viewer count is unpredictable and viewer seats would be uncosted, a team of analysts who each hold data in different formats and want one map assembled in an afternoon rather than a week. Of those, an environmental consultancy that needs a client to view and comment on survey results without installing gis software and a utility field crew collecting asset condition offline and syncing to the same map the office is looking at are not what Lonboard is typically brought in for.
What can Felt do that Lonboard cannot?
Felt covers Real-time collaboration, Drag and drop data, Unlimited viewers, Field app with offline support. Lonboard covers GeoArrow binary transfer, GeoPandas input, deck.gl layers, Jupyter widget.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Felt: What does Felt cost?

Felt does not publish prices for Professional or Enterprise. Personal is free but licensed for non-commercial use only.

Lonboard: Why not just use pydeck?

pydeck serialises geometry to GeoJSON to reach the browser. Lonboard uses a binary GeoArrow pipeline, which is the reason it handles far larger datasets in the same notebook.

Felt: Can I pay monthly?

No. Paid plans are annual contracts. There is a 7 day trial of Professional.

Lonboard: Who maintains it?

Development Seed, a geospatial engineering consultancy, as an open source project. There is no commercial support offering.

Felt: Do viewers cost anything?

No. Viewer access is unlimited on the paid plans, which is the main reason organisations with large map audiences choose it.

Lonboard: Does it work outside Jupyter?

It is built as a Jupyter widget. Exporting to standalone HTML is possible, but the intended environment is a notebook.

Felt: Is there a nonprofit discount?

Yes, 30 per cent for verified United States nonprofits, and free access for verified students and classrooms.

Lonboard: Is it free for commercial use?

Yes, it is open source with no licence fee.

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