What is Tile38 used for?

Tile38 is an in-memory geospatial database and geofencing server with spatial indexing and real-time notifications over webhooks or pub/sub. It is a good fit for fleet and asset tracking with geofences, and location-based alerts in delivery apps.

Is Tile38 open source?

Yes. Tile38 is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at tidwall/tile38 and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. Tile38 is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Tile38?

Yes. Tile38 can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What are some alternatives to Tile38?

Similar open-source tools in the Databases category include Redis, AresDB and ClickHouse. SaaS products in the same category include Aerospike, Amazon MemoryDB and Amazon ElastiCache.

Is Tile38 actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Tile38 was on 2 September 2026, and the latest release is 1.38.0, published on 9 June 2026. The project has 9.7k stars on GitHub.

Tile38: open-source databases

About Tile38

Tile38 is an open-source, in-memory data store for geolocation data, combining a spatial index with a real-time geofencing server. It stores a variety of geographic object types, including latitude and longitude points, bounding boxes, XYZ tiles, Geohashes, QuadKeys and GeoJSON.

Search methods such as Nearby, Within and Intersects let applications ask which objects are close to a point or inside an area. Geofences can notify you in real time through webhooks or pub/sub channels when objects enter, exit or cross a defined region. The server supports a variety of connection protocols and has client libraries in many languages. It is written in Go, and detailed documentation lives on the project website.

Tile38 is MIT-licensed and runs on your own servers or containers. It suits logistics, fleet tracking, delivery and location-aware applications that need quick radius and boundary queries with live alerts.

Key features

In-memory geospatial index
Nearby, Within and Intersects searches
Real-time geofencing via webhooks and pub/sub
GeoJSON, Geohash and XYZ tile objects
Client libraries in many languages
Written in Go

Good fit for

→Fleet and asset tracking with geofences
→Location-based alerts in delivery apps

Built with: Go
Tags: geospatial; geofencing; database; in-memory; golang; location; geojson; real-time

Tile38: questions and answers

What is Tile38 used for?: Tile38 is an in-memory geospatial database and geofencing server with spatial indexing and real-time notifications over webhooks or pub/sub. It is a good fit for fleet and asset tracking with geofences, and location-based alerts in delivery apps.
Is Tile38 open source?: Yes. Tile38 is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at tidwall/tile38 and is written mainly in Go.
Is Tile38 free?: Yes. Tile38 is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Tile38?: Yes. Tile38 can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What are some alternatives to Tile38?: Similar open-source tools in the Databases category include Redis, AresDB and ClickHouse. SaaS products in the same category include Aerospike, Amazon MemoryDB and Amazon ElastiCache.
Is Tile38 actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Tile38 was on 2 September 2026, and the latest release is 1.38.0, published on 9 June 2026. The project has 9.7k stars on GitHub.