Map View vs. Advanced Maps
Advanced Maps differs from the other plugins compared here in one structural way: it has no map view of its own. It extends the first-party Obsidian Maps view rather than rendering its own map, and bundles no map library. Map View vs. Obsidian Maps is worth reading first, because several rows marked unsupported there change when Advanced Maps is installed.
What's Similar
- Both display notes as pins on an interactive map, and respond to Bases filters.
- Both draw GPX, KML, TCX and GeoJSON paths, from stand-alone files or from notes that link to them.
- Both can search for places, enter a geolocation from the map, use the device's GPS, and show a map with no network connection.
- Both draw an elevation profile for a path that carries elevation data.
What's Different
| Map View | Obsidian Maps + Advanced Maps | |
|---|---|---|
| Work mode | Bases or a stand-alone view | Bases, plus inline maps from an embedded track file |
| Locations per note | Many — front matter + unlimited inline locations | One, front matter only |
| Inline locations | Supported, with per-location inline tags | Not supported |
| Marker styling | Query-based display rules with icons, colors, shapes, badges | Bases properties and formulas, which the plugin leaves untouched |
| Filtering | Bases filter + Map View's own query language | Bases filter |
| Routing | Built-in via GraphHopper API | Not supported |
| Path statistics | Elevation profile in the marker popup | Elevation profile, plus distance and elevation figures written into note properties that Bases can sort |
| Geotagged photos | Not supported | Placed on the map by their own EXIF, as thumbnails |
| Offline usage | Automatic cache + batch download | A folder of tiles already on disk; no bulk download |
| Map sources | Tile based | Vector or tile based |
| Basemap alignment | Any tile source, with no datum conversion | GCJ-02 and BD-09 basemaps aligned with WGS-84 note coordinates |
Which Should I Use?
- Map View is the better choice if you want several locations in one note, inline geolocations in body text, display rules, built-in routing, or a map that does not require Bases at all.
- Advanced Maps may be the better choice if your notes already live in Bases, and you want the built-in Maps view to also show paths with sortable statistics, whole folders of geotagged photos, and locations entered from a search, a pasted map link or the map itself. It is also the one that aligns a Chinese basemap with WGS-84 coordinates.
The two are not mutually exclusive, and they do not read the same data: inline geolocations are invisible to Bases, so a vault that uses them keeps needing Map View either way.