Hecate Project Clarification

[lhorus]

This is not a real issue but rather a question.

I'm having a hard time truly understanding the goal of Hecate. It it to provide a framework to take OSM data and produce Vector tiles? Is it to automatically process OSM data which can be updated by users? Will the project aim at automatically import OSM data ? Will it submit changes automatically to OSM? Is its purpose to replace Mapbox's current tile server (I don't know which it is) ?

Sorry but I'm truly struggling with understanding the tool. In my case, I'm trying to avoid early project costs by hosting/generating my own tiles until I'm able to support Mapbox's cost. Trying to understand if this would be a good alternative to my current cumbersome/manual/error-prone pipeline.

[ingalls]

Hey @lhorus Good question, Hecate isn't tied to, or primarily designed to work or interact with OSM data. It is designed in response to the need for a Modern, Open-Source competitor to the underlying server infrastructure that OSM runs on - The Rails Server.

Folks are increasingly starting their own crowd-sourced geospatial projects that would not fit into the type of data that OSM is looking for, IE:

• You and a group of friends are collecting and editing rivers where you want to go whitewater kayaking
• You are a county and want to have a central place to store & edit Civic Addresses, building polygons, or street centrelines
• You are an NGO doing on-the-ground field surveys for infectious disease & vaccination

These folks currently don't have a straightforward option for managing and hosting their data. This is the void that Hecate aims to fill. As a one liner - "Hecate is a geospatial storage engine". It's not designed to compete with, or replace any of Mapbox's current commercial offerings.

If you primary goal is to edit & manage data, you should investigate using Hecate, however if your goal is to create & serve Mapbox Vector Tiles, you should checkout Mapbox products like Studio, & Mapbox-GL (They have a very generous free plan!), or an Open-Source offering like T-Rex, maintained by the very talented @pka.

Hope this helps clarify the project & happy to answer any questions!