NomadTracks vs. Avenza Maps — the free alternative for your own maps

Avenza Maps made the GeoPDF famous on phones — and since its March 2026 pricing change, importing your own maps is no longer possible at all on the free tier, while the Plus subscription ($34.99/year, per device) caps you at 20 imported maps. If that change brought you here: NomadTracks does the same core trick — georeferenced PDF/TIFF maps with your live position — with unlimited imports, for free.

So if you're hunting for a free Avenza Maps alternative, an app to open GeoPDFs without a yearly subscription, or simply somewhere to bring your own maps without a per-device import cap, this page is an honest look at exactly where each app is stronger — and how to move your maps across.

Get NomadTracks free on the App Store

Side by side

	NomadTracks	Avenza Maps
Import your own GeoPDF / GeoTIFF	Unlimited, free	Free: no imports (since March 2026); Plus $34.99/yr: 20 maps; unlimited needs Pro
Georeference a plain PDF, scan or photo	Yes — in-app control points with accuracy readout	No — maps must already be georeferenced
Built-in map store	No	Yes — large catalog of commercial and agency maps
GPS track recording	Full recorder: elevation, charts, photos, Live Activities	Basic recording
Apple Watch standalone recording	Yes — GPS + heart rate without the iPhone	No
Route planning on roads and trails	Yes (Pro)	No
Account required	No	Account for store/sync features
Where your data lives	Your device + your own iCloud/Dropbox/NAS	Device + vendor account services
Platforms	iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Android	iOS and Android
Price model	Free core; optional Pro subscription	Free with limits; Plus subscription

Feature overview as of June 2026, written by the NomadTracks team in good faith — products evolve, so please verify current features and pricing with each vendor. All product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

Choose Avenza Maps if …

you want a curated store of commercial maps (nautical charts, county atlases, agency products) or you need Android today — NomadTracks is on Android now, but Avenza's catalog and cross-platform reach are available right now.

Choose NomadTracks if …

you bring your own maps. Unlimited GeoPDF/GeoTIFF imports for free, the ability to georeference ANY map — including a photo of a paper one — plus a real track recorder, Watch app and private sync around it.

No account, and no yearly fee

The change that sent most people looking for an Avenza alternative wasn't just the price — it was the shape of it: a yearly, per-device subscription, tied to an account, just to keep importing your own maps. NomadTracks is built the opposite way. There is no account to create and nothing to renew to keep your maps working: importing and georeferencing custom maps is part of the free core, unlimited, forever. The optional NomadTracks Pro subscription exists, but it only adds route planning, Google/OSM basemaps and Dropbox sync — it never gates your own maps, and there is still no login.

The same maps — you bring them in yourself

Avenza's map store is genuinely useful, but most of the maps hikers actually want are free from the source: USGS quads, the official national-park handout at the gate, BLM public-lands PDFs, forest-service and alpine-club sheets. NomadTracks reads the embedded georeferencing in a GeoPDF or GeoTIFF and aligns it automatically on import — one tap. And when a map has no georeferencing at all (a plain scan, or a photo of a paper map), you set a few control points and NomadTracks georeferences it in-app, showing the accuracy as a live ± metre readout. That last trick has no equivalent in Avenza.

A full GPS recorder around the map viewer

Avenza is, at heart, a map viewer. NomadTracks is a map viewer and a proper recorder: elevation, speed and pace charts, photo waypoints pinned to the track, Live-Activity stats on the Lock Screen, standalone Apple Watch recording with heart rate, and clean GPX/GeoJSON export with no lock-in. You can see it working on the real recorded track stories — every route map and elevation profile there is rendered straight from the raw GPS data.

The other Avenza Maps alternatives, honestly compared

If you are weighing up Avenza alternatives in general, it is worth knowing which app solves which half of the problem. Avenza really does two things: it opens georeferenced maps, and it sells them in a store. Most alternatives replace only one of those.

Gaia GPS — a deep catalog of ready-made basemap layers and a strong web planner. The right pick if you want layers handed to you rather than bringing your own sheets; it has no equivalent import-and-georeference workflow, and the good layers are subscription-gated.
CalTopo — the most powerful desktop planning tool of the group, and it can export GeoPDFs. Many people plan in CalTopo and navigate elsewhere; the phone app is not really a paper-map viewer.
Topo GPS — closest in spirit on privacy and offline use, but the model is buying official national topo maps country by country rather than importing your own.
Outdooractive and AllTrails — tour databases first. Excellent for finding a route someone else walked, but neither is an answer if what you have is a scanned park handout.

The gap all of them share is the specific thing Avenza's free tier used to cover: taking a map you already have — a PDF, a scan, a photo of a paper sheet — and putting your live position on it. That is the job NomadTracks is built around, unlimited and free, and it is the honest reason this page exists.

FAQ

Is NomadTracks a free Avenza alternative?

For the core use case — opening georeferenced PDF/TIFF maps with your live GPS position — yes, and without any map-count limit. Since March 2026 Avenza's free tier allows no custom map imports at all and Plus ($34.99/year) allows 20; in NomadTracks unlimited custom maps are part of the free core, and the optional Pro subscription covers other features (route planning, extra basemaps, Dropbox) — never your maps.

What is the best free alternative to Avenza Maps on iPhone?

For importing and georeferencing your own maps, NomadTracks is the closest free like-for-like: unlimited GeoPDF/GeoTIFF imports, in-app georeferencing of scans and photos, live GPS position and offline use — with no import cap and no subscription for that workflow. Topo GPS and Gaia GPS are alternatives too, but they sell maps or gate features behind a subscription rather than letting you bring your own for free.

Do I have to pay a yearly fee or make an account like Avenza Plus?

No. NomadTracks needs no account at all, and the custom-map workflow is free forever — there is no yearly fee to keep your imported maps working. Avenza's paid tier is a per-year, per-device subscription; NomadTracks' optional Pro subscription only adds route planning, extra basemaps and Dropbox sync, and never touches your maps.

Can NomadTracks open the same maps as Avenza?

Generally yes: GeoPDF and GeoTIFF files with embedded georeferencing import directly. Maps bought inside Avenza's store are licensed to that app, but the same titles are often available as plain GeoPDFs from the original publishers or agencies (USGS, BLM, national parks and more).

Is NomadTracks available on Android?

Yes — NomadTracks is on Google Play, alongside iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch.

What does NomadTracks have that Avenza doesn't?

In-app georeferencing of non-georeferenced maps (scans, photos, plain PDFs), a full-featured GPS recorder with elevation/speed/pace charts, standalone Apple Watch recording, route planning, and accountless private sync via your own iCloud, Dropbox or Synology NAS.

Try NomadTracks free on the App Store