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Cover image for Maps are easy. Map UIs are not.
Kaustubh Kushwaha
Kaustubh Kushwaha

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Maps are easy. Map UIs are not.

EasyMaps world map dark mode
EasyMaps satellite route UI

Most map libraries solve rendering.

Very few solve product UI.

I’ve used maps in dashboards, tools, and internal products —

and every time, the pain wasn’t the map itself.

It was everything around it:

  • markers that don’t match the design system
  • side panels that feel hacked together
  • filters, overlays, legends, states — all custom every time
  • styling conflicts between the map and UI components

The result?

You rebuild the same map UI patterns again and again.

The problem isn’t Leaflet, Mapbox, or Google Maps.

They do their job well.

The problem is that they stop at “map primitives”,

while real products need opinionated UI composition.

After repeating this cycle a few times, I decided to stop rewriting the same code.

I started building a small, composable UI kit for maps —

in the same spirit as shadcn/ui, but focused on map-heavy products.

The goal wasn’t to replace map libraries.

It was to make map UIs:

  • predictable
  • design-system friendly
  • fast to assemble
  • less painful to maintain

It’s still early, but the experience already feels different —

more like assembling a product, less like fighting CSS and state.

If you’ve built dashboards, logistics tools, real-estate apps,

or anything where maps are core —

you probably know this pain.

I’m calling it EasyMaps.

Link (for those curious):

👉 https://easymaps.vercel.app/

Would love to hear how others are handling map UI complexity today.

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