Once you have created your vector tiles, typically you look for a solution to serve them to clients. From Fabian Rechsteiner comes an interesting speed comparison of open-source solutions for a slightly different context: Serving vector tiles not from PMTiles or MBTiles, but from a PostGIS instance. The GitHub repo highlights speed comparisons between six vector tile servers across different tests:
- BBOX
- ldproxy
- Martin
- pg_tileserv
- Tegola
- TiPg
Besides the statistics in the benchmark repository, Fabian Rechsteiner has published an eye-opening interactive side-by-side comparison of the six vector tile servers using a MapLibre client and data from the canton of Thurgau at https://vectormap.ch:
Fabian Rechsteiner’s benchmark repository contains the code to roll your own tests (or maybe update his results a few months down the road). These insights are the results of his Master’s thesis at the University of Salzburg, which is also publicly available (pdf, in German). If you have a subscription, you can also read a shorter article on the analysis in Geomatik Schweiz, edition 11-12/2024 (paywalled, in German).
Obviously, speed isn’t the only quality dimension to decide on a vector tile server. But it is certainly an important one.
