Gaia Pro or ON-X Offroad- Why? Why not?

Posting this here as I have Gaia GPS as it’s bundled with my Trailforks subscription. Boo yah!

the problem? It’s got a terribly tough to figure out UI interface. For instance, I can’t figure out how to make a route or track to follow?

The dilemma… ON-X seems to have a dynamite UI and every article or YouTuber seems to be using it (paid to maybe).


So… to you TW.

Gaia or On-X.

Opinons please? Preferably from users?

 

Don't have experience with Gaia but I have used onX for almost 2 years. When I originally was picking which app to use, I downloaded both and played around with them a bit. I ended up choosing onX mainly because of the UI and I liked how it functioned better and have no problem paying the $30 annually for premium. All my buddies use onX as well and it takes up almost 9 GB on my phone cause of all the offline stuff I have saved.

 

Pretty much ditto on Onyx.
I haven’t used others before though.
It’s a little weird of an interface to fully use all the features on at first, but once you make sense of it it’s pretty awesome.

 

I have Gaia and haven't really figured it out. I think @turbodb still uses Gaia.

 

well then… @turbodb since I pay for Gaia already I could really use a friend before I pay for something else. Lol

 

I actually use Backcountry Navigator (a combination of "Pro" and "XE") and I tried Gaia, but didn't end up liking the way Gaia used the available screen real estate, so I stuck with BCN.

Gaia is probably better than BCN though, if you're not already used to something else. Certainly the maps+overlays are great, and the offline downloading is fantastic. Creating routes is also pretty bad-ass, if you do it through the web UI on the computer. As good - or better - than Google My Maps (IMO).


Now... for Gaia vs. On-X. I know you hear all the YouTubers saying how great On-X is. I can tell you that On-X's influencer budget is enormous. Like ENORMOUS. I've never used it before though, so just b/c they pay a lot of people to say it's great, doesn't mean it isn't. But you catch my drift.

Happy to answer questions about Gaia if you have specifics.

 

I use both, some things Gaia does better and On-X does other things better.
It would be great if there was a clear winner, but that’s not the case here.

 

I’m not interested in their subscription models so I use a few other tools

Avenza maps - download georeferenced pdf maps. It’s kind of like paper, but it’ll use your gps to plot locations and you can save bookmarks. I’ve found a lot of national forest maps and nat geo maps available on there.

Organic Maps - uses opensteetmap data, can be fully offline, can do routing that seems pretty decent. I use it a lot for saving pins that I then save and organize on my computer later.

 

The nice thing about Avenza is you can buy and download a gazetteer and use that layer

 

I have both Gaia and OnX subscriptions. Signed up for OnX but not really used it yet. Mostly because Gaia can be a pain building routes, and editing a newly created route hasn't worked for me so far. Ended up deleting and recreating. I have several friends that I have asked for advice on Gaia and they basically report the same issues. I do like the fact that I can download lots of maps on Gaia, except in preparing for next weeks trip I just hit a 160k tile limit and now telling me I have to delete some maps so I can load new ones.

Haven't really tried OnX yet, but I think that's where I am now. I would say I have 20+ hours trying to create on Gaia.
Good luck.

 

I use gaia - but my girlfriend works in GIS so she showed me alot. Gaia pro is fantastic but I know whatcha mean about UI.

 

I’ve been a subscriber to Gaia since Thanksgiving 2019. It is installed in my Chinese head unit which is basically an Android tablet with a radio tuner plus more. I find the user interface easy to use. I really like the automatic upload and storage of routes from trailsoffroad.com to Gaia. The map layers are most informative. For example I can determine private land boundaries and snow depth totals when I go ski or snowmobile. I use Gaia to plan my trips and help
find camping locations.
I have no experience with OnX, since Gaia provides all I need. I hear good things about OnX mainly from the Utah youtubers I watch.

 

I've used Gaia for years. They updated the UI recently so that it's simpler and more intuitive. The biggest issue I have with it is that, once a GPS track is saved, I seemingly can't trim it.

 

I use Gaia. No complaints and the fact that its Android Auto compatible is a huge plus.

 

Not able to answer your questions per say but I use Gaia. Route building _can_ be a pain sometimes it bugs out. Has some nice basic layers and I have the paid version. Mostly I just navigate without a route. Pictures saved to waypoints for the potential future camp spots. Downloading offline maps takes forever. It works well for me on my ipad. Avenza I stuff all pdfs into from DNR or download free stuff. Useful when you want to see specific areas with no fuss, especially if you want to compare pdfs published a few years back to the new stuff— finding what trails they are “removing” etc.

Do a couple of trips find which app you like the best is my only recommendation.

 

I still use BCN Pro. There's two apps that I've had on my phone since Beta. Those are BCN and Neutron music player. I won't change either until they reach end of life. Both have outdated UI's but are by far the best in class apps for Android. I use BCE on alpine trips. With my phone in airplane mode, BCN Pro recording a track at 5 second intervals, and Neutron playing tunes via Bluetooth earbuds I only lose 7% battery an hour. That's about as solid as it gets for tracking and tuning. lol

 

Yep. Same reason I keep using BCN Pro. Even with the really low power use, it's still super stable too, which is nice. The first time I used Gaia, I submitted an error ticket b/c my battery was drained so rapidly (within 7 hours or so).

It's a bummer that the BCN UI (both Pro and XE) is so far behind tools like Gaia and Google My Maps, but for actually tracking offline, I think BCN is hard to beat. Just means using different tools for planning and exploring, which is fine by me. Everything supports .GPX, so who cares what tool you use...

 

I've been using the Gaia Pro for more than 10 years and love it (I am a certified Map Dork). I started using it while working for an off-road racing team in Baja -- I *needed* something I could use with no internet connection; for team-support, I landed in some very remote parts of Baja. Of course 'no-connectivity-needed' also comes in handy when wandering north of the border.

In my opinion, making maps with Gaia is kind of kludgy -- difficult to go back and edit tracks, make other modifications. This is where Caltopo comes in, it's much more powerful in this respect. Super easy to make and modify tracks, many layers of map options including Forest Service, FAA and marine charts, historical topos, MVUM, public lands, etc.

My workflow is:
- Build maps on Caltopo for desktop
- Import to Gaia/iPad in the truck (since the truck is parked within range of our home wifi, Gaia gets synced in the truck as I make changes to a map in the house).

I also have maps that I use to locate things which aren't here anymore, or things which aren't displayed on modern maps -- a great way to find old mines, towns, old infrastructure.

On this tracking example of Gaia, the red lines are the tracks I built for the trip, the pink line is my breadcrumbs. I have an iPad Air hard-wired in the truck dedicated to navigation.

My dos centavos.



(not quite sure why I was in airplane mode)

 

re ON-X, I have not used it. But, I do not need or want an app to tell me where to go and how to get there. For the last half dozen years, I've had to plan my trips to stay away from the places that trendy overlanders congregate. Years ago, I learned that sharing my outside space with others (family and friends aside) greatly degrades the experience. On the up-side, the overlanders have pushed me farther out there, to more remote places, really cool locations.

 

TLDR: I use both, but If I could only use one it would be Gaia.

For those who want to read:

I’ve used both a bunch. I used to only use onX because I hadn’t heard of Gaia. Then I downloaded Gaia and in my opinion it’s better. It’s a bit harder to use and gives less info about each individual trail but it has WAY more trails mapped.

It took me a while to learn how to use Gaia and figure out what all the different symbols and colors meant, but I use it more frequently than onX now because it has way more trails. I still use both, because onX is great for ease of use and pictures of each trail. I would say onX wins easily in that department. Their user interface is way, way better than Gaia.

Gaia is more of like a traditional map with a stupid amount of trails mapped out. I’ve driven literally hundreds of miles of trails that are on Gaia but not on onX.

So I’d say overall, Gaia is better in my opinion. Loads more trails mapped. onX has a better user interface and more pics/info on each trail. They both have their pros and cons. I will continue to pay for a subscription to both because I think they complement each other nicely. I wish all the info was in one app but oh well!