MapLibre is becoming an increasingly popular framework for creating maps on the internet. While it is feature-rich by itself it thrives from a growing ecosystem of plugins, enabling additional functionality such as user interface, geocoding/searching, and developer tools that improve the user and developer experience alike.
At Geoman, we wanted to contribute to this ecosystem by bringing our experience from developing Geoman for Leaflet into the MapLibre world. About a year ago, we released MapLibre-Geoman, an opensource port of the popular Leaflet-Geoman library. MapLibre-Geoman aims to give MapLibre applications advanced geometry editing tools to give a "CAD-like" feel. While tools like Mapbox-GL-Draw provide basic drawing, MapLibre-Geoman extends this with CAD-like controls for complex geometry editing, filling a critical gap in the ecosystem. It has been well-received, but if you are reading this, please support us by going to our GitHub repo and give us a star!
MapLibre's Plugin directory, currently lists 82 plugins and 20 framework integrations. Since the plugin directory was launched in 2023, plugins have increased by 71% from 48 (we checked Wayback Machine for the data). You can find the growth by category below:
| Plugin Category | 2023 Count | 2025 Count | Growth Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Map Rendering | 7 | 18 | +157% |
| Layer Types | 5 | 12 | +140% |
| Utility Libraries | 8 | 12 | +50% |
| User Interface | 23 | 32 | +39% |
| Geocoding & Search | NA | 4 | NA |
| Development Tools | 5 | 4 | -20% |
Most Popular MapLibre Plugins
These plugins have amassed over 43k stars combined, representing the standard toolkit for modern web mapping. Below you find the largest repos sorted by size.
visgl/deck.gl — 13.6K+ stars
Best for: High-performance data visualization.
Why use it: The gold standard for rendering large datasets (millions of points) with WebGL. It integrates seamlessly with MapLibre to overlay 3D data visualizations on your base maps.
openlayers/openlayers — 12.2K+ stars
Best for: Comprehensive mapping capabilities.
Why use it: A robust, time-tested library offering support for a vast array of data formats and coordinate systems—often used alongside MapLibre for specialized layer handling.
Turfjs/turf — 10.1K+ stars
Best for: Geospatial analysis in the browser.
Why use it: Enables advanced geometric operations such as buffers, unions, and intersections directly in client-side JavaScript (no server needed).
protomaps/PMTiles — 2.5K+ stars
Best for: Cost-effective map hosting.
Why use it: A modern, cloud-native format that stores tiled data in a single file. Enables low-cost, “serverless” map hosting comparable to expensive SaaS platforms.
mapbox/mapbox-gl-draw — 1K+ stars
Best for: Basic geometry creation.
Why use it: The baseline standard for drawing simple shapes on a map.
For advanced CAD-like editing, see MapLibre-Geoman.
geoman-io/maplibre-geoman — 74 stars
Best for: Advanced geometry editing.
Why use it: The most powerful editing toolkit for MapLibre. Offers snapping, splitting, reshaping, hole editing, constraint rules, and CAD-like behavior.
It is great to see the growth of the plugin ecosystem, we will keep contributing at Geoman.