Compare
Route planners compared, honestly
There is no single best route planner, only a best one for how you ride, run, or hike. Short version: routess for free, GPX-first planning in the browser; Komoot for community routes and turn-by-turn navigation; Strava for training and social features; RideWithGPS for committed road cyclists and clubs; Plotaroute for fine-grained manual control. We build routess, so read our take knowing that, but we have kept the table honest.
The short table
| Planner | Best for | Price model | GPX export | Open source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| routess | Free web-first planning with surface data | Free, Pro €29.99/year, no subscription | Free, unlimited | Yes, MIT |
| Komoot | Community routes, voice navigation | Free tier, Premium subscription for new users | Yes, own tours | No |
| Strava | Training, segments, social | Route planning needs a subscription | Yes | No |
| RideWithGPS | Road cycling, clubs, events | Limited free tier, subscriptions | Yes | No |
| Plotaroute | Detailed manual editing | Free tier, paid Premium | Yes | No |
routess
A free, open-source planner for cycling, running, and hiking. Plan in the browser without an account, see the surface breakdown (paved, compacted, unpaved, path) and elevation profile of every route, then import or export GPX without restrictions. Installable as a web app on your phone. The honest gaps: no voice navigation, no community route library yet, and the product is young. If you want to know exactly where it beats and loses to Komoot, the Komoot comparison goes deeper.
Komoot
The biggest community of the bunch: route collections, highlights, and photos for nearly anywhere, plus polished native apps with voice turn-by-turn navigation and offline maps. The trade-offs: since early 2025 new users need the Premium subscription for most paid features, including sending routes to a Garmin or Wahoo, an account is required, and the platform is closed. For multi-day touring with navigation it is still the reference.
Strava
Strava is a training and social platform first, a route planner second. The planner can overlay the global heatmap and favours popular roads, genuinely useful for finding where people actually ride and run, but creating routes sits behind the subscription. If you live in Strava for segments and training load anyway, the planner is right there; few people pick Strava for planning alone.
RideWithGPS
The road cyclist's workhorse: strong cue sheets, club and event tooling, and reliable head-unit integration. The web planner is solid on the free tier, with mobile planning and the heavier features behind subscriptions. Less aimed at runners and hikers.
Plotaroute
A web planner with an emphasis on manual control: snap on or off per section, bulk editing tools, and flexible printing. The interface shows its age and the free tier works with usage quotas (limited stops on auto-routing, one generated route per day, ads), but for meticulous manual editing it has a loyal following.
Which one should you pick?
- You want free, fast planning in the browser with GPX freedom and surface data: routess.
- You want voice navigation and community-proven routes for touring: Komoot.
- You train with segments and already pay for it: Strava.
- You ride road seriously, in a club, with a head unit: RideWithGPS.
- You want maximal manual editing control: Plotaroute.