At Iosys, we're always striving to enhance both the user experience and the backend efficiency of our services. As part of this ongoing commitment, we've made the strategic decision to transition away from Google-based commercial services, namely Google Maps and Google reCAPTCHA, in favour of Leaflet-based mapping and Cloudflare Turnstile. This transition brings a range of benefits for both our users and developers, reinforcing our commitment to privacy, performance, and flexibility.
Why Move Away from Google Maps?
Google Maps has long been a dominant player in the mapping space, but its increasing costs and reliance on Google's infrastructure pose limitations. Here's why we're making the switch:
Cost Efficiency: Google Maps' pricing model has become increasingly restrictive, with costs scaling significantly as usage grows. Leaflet, on the other hand, is an open-source library that allows us to build custom mapping solutions without licensing fees.
Greater Control & Customisation: With Leaflet, we have full control over the mapping experience. We can integrate third-party tile providers, customise the UI, and optimise performance without Google's API limitations.
Better Privacy: Google Maps tracks user interactions extensively. By using Leaflet with self-hosted map tiles or privacy-conscious providers like OpenStreetMap, we can offer users a mapping experience without intrusive tracking.
Why Cloudflare Turnstile Over Google reCAPTCHA?
Google reCAPTCHA is widely used for bot mitigation but comes with significant drawbacks:
User Experience: reCAPTCHA often forces users to solve time-consuming challenges (e.g., selecting traffic lights or cars & buses), which can be frustrating and disrupt workflow.
Privacy Concerns: reCAPTCHA collects user data and utilises that data for advertising and remarketing, making it less privacy friendly.
Performance: Google's solution adds additional loading time to pages, affecting speed and performance.
Cloudflare Turnstile provides a seamless, privacy-first alternative that improves both user experience and backend efficiency:
Frictionless Experience: Turnstile automatically detects bots without requiring user interaction in most cases.
Privacy-First Approach: Unlike reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare does not track users across the web, aligning with our commitment to user privacy.
Better Performance: Turnstile is lightweight and doesn't add unnecessary overhead to page loading, ensuring a faster and smoother user experience.
The Developer Perspective: Easier Integration, More Flexibility
For our development team, these changes mean greater flexibility, improved security, and a more future-proof tech stack. Both Leaflet and Cloudflare Turnstile offer:
Simplified API Integration: No need to deal with Google's increasingly restrictive API quotas.
Open-Source & Community Support: Leaflet's extensive plugin ecosystem allows for enhanced functionality without vendor lock-in.
Improved Load Speeds: With less reliance on external scripts and API calls, our websites and applications can run faster and more efficiently.
Final Thoughts
At Iosys, we believe in delivering the best possible experience to our users while ensuring our technology choices align with cost efficiency, privacy, and performance. By moving to Leaflet-based mapping and Cloudflare Turnstile, we're taking a step towards a more open, privacy-friendly, and developer-friendly web.
We're excited about these changes and look forward to bringing you an even better experience on our platform. Have questions or feedback? Let us know - we'd love to hear from you!