January 14, 2026
Boom goes the budget
Why NUKEMAP isn't on Google Maps anymore
Because Google’s price hikes and missing features turned a teaching tool into a wallet-melter
TLDR: NUKEMAP left Google Maps after features stalled and usage fees soared, making an educational tool too costly. Commenters rage about surprise bills, push open-source alternatives, and argue over the “look” users expect — with jokes like “Maps = Spam” — highlighting a bigger fight: cost versus convenience for the web’s favorite maps.
NUKEMAP, the internet’s favorite mushroom-cloud simulator, has ditched Google Maps — and the comments are mushrooming. Creator Alex Wellerstein says the Google Maps API — the tool that lets websites borrow Google’s map — stagnated and got pricey, while the standalone site kept shiny features he couldn’t use. His NUKEMAP3D died when Google killed its Earth plugin, and no rival offers the global 3D buildings he needs. Translation: features fizzled, bills exploded.
Enter the crowd with flamethrowers. Open-source fans cheered, with mystraline pushing OpenStreetMap and snarking about “$1500 a month for three circles.” jmuguy spilled tea: their team nearly jumped ship to save thousands, but feared the “look” change would freak out users — plus a spicy jab that Google’s pricing “feels Microsoft-y.” Then rvnx turned it into a horror story: one auto-refresh and “boom,” a $100k bill. Meanwhile, Photogrammaton just wants to know if anything’s changed, and DonHopkins drops the meme: “Google Maps is Spam spelled backwards.”
The drama? Cost vs. comfort. One side yells “ditch the monopoly,” the other clings to the familiar blue-and-gray map. Everyone agrees on one thing: surprise invoices are scarier than mushroom clouds. Read the full saga on Restricted Data, and keep your billing dashboard armed.
Key Points
- •NUKEMAP was remade in 2012 using the Google Maps API and JavaScript after an initial 2005 PHP/MapQuest-based version.
- •Google Maps API stagnated and deprecated useful features, while the standalone Google Maps gained features not available to API users.
- •Google deprecated the Google Earth Plugin, leaving NUKEMAP3D effectively nonfunctional, with no equivalent replacement.
- •Google’s pricing model changes significantly increased costs, described as punitive for educational developers.
- •NUKEMAP receives high traffic (thousands to hundreds of thousands of daily views), and offers experimental KMZ export for Google Earth as a partial 3D workaround.