The free software that makes up the LizPack open source geospatial infrastructure

An open source geospatial infrastructure, not one more piece of software

When people talk about web GIS, they often picture a single product, delivered by a single vendor, with its own format, its own license and its own contract. LizPack works differently. It is an open source geospatial infrastructure: a set of servers, automations and interfaces that deploys, connects, updates and monitors existing free software. The software itself is not ours. It belongs to its communities, which have been developing it for years, publish its source code and set its license.

This choice has a simple consequence: everything you do with LizPack, you do with tools you could install elsewhere. A map published with LizPack Map is a Lizmap map served by QGIS Server. A layer published in GeoServer Cloud is a GeoServer layer. A survey run with LizPack Field is carried out with the official QField app. The skills your teams acquire, the projects they build and the data they produce remain valid outside our platform.

Our work happens around this software: installing the right combination of versions, assigning a subdomain and an HTTPS certificate, connecting a database to a map server, bringing field records back to a map, monitoring that everything responds, and applying updates. The guide What LizPack does details this division of roles product by product. Here we look at the other side: the software itself.

The licenses quoted in this guide are those announced by each project on its official website or repository. They may change: if in doubt about a specific use, the license text published by the project is authoritative.

QGIS and QGIS Server: the desktop and the map engine

QGIS is the most widely used free desktop GIS. It is developed by an international community of volunteers, companies and public bodies, and it is a project of the OSGeo foundation (Open Source Geospatial Foundation). It is distributed under the GNU GPL, version 2 or later. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, reads most geographic formats and is used to build projects: layers, symbology, labels, data entry forms and print layouts.

QGIS Server is the server counterpart of QGIS, built from the same code and released under the same license. It reads a QGIS project exactly as it was built on the desktop and serves it on the web according to OGC standards: WMS for map images, WFS for vector features, WMTS for tiles and WCS for rasters. Its main strength is fidelity: what you see in QGIS Desktop is what the server draws, with the same symbology and the same labels.

In LizPack, QGIS Desktop remains your tool, on your computer: we do not modify it or replace it. QGIS Server, for its part, runs in every LizPack Map instance. The QGIS Server version is chosen when the instance is deployed, and from the Basic plan upward each instance has its own QGIS Server. Our LizPack Publisher extension, free and published in the official QGIS plugin repository, simply adds to QGIS Desktop a way to send a project to the instance.

• Development: the QGIS community, an OSGeo foundation project.
• License: GNU GPL version 2 or later.
• Role in LizPack: QGIS Desktop to build projects, QGIS Server to serve them in every LizPack Map instance.

Lizmap Web Client and the Lizmap plugin: publishing a QGIS project on the web

Lizmap is developed by 3Liz, a French publisher of free software, with contributions from its user community. It has two parts. The first is Lizmap Web Client, the web application that displays maps in the browser: navigation, search, printing, online editing and access rights per user group. It is released under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL 2.0).

The second is the Lizmap plugin for QGIS Desktop, released under a free license in the official QGIS plugin repository. This plugin is where you set what the web map will offer: base layers, visible tools, editable layers, popups and scales. The plugin writes these settings into a configuration file stored next to the QGIS project. Lizmap Web Client reads that file, and QGIS Server draws the project layers.

LizPack Map hosts Lizmap Web Client as 3Liz publishes it, together with QGIS Server, a PostGIS database and a tile cache, on an HTTPS subdomain whose certificate renews automatically. To prepare a project, you use the Lizmap plugin exactly as for any Lizmap publication: we have no configuration format of our own. The modules we offer, such as dashboards and MapBuilder, are added to Lizmap without modifying it, and can be removed without touching your projects.

To understand what an instance contains and how it displays a map, the guide Anatomy of a Lizmap instance goes through each component in detail.

PostgreSQL and PostGIS: the spatial database

PostgreSQL is a free relational database management system, developed for more than thirty years by the PostgreSQL Global Development Group, an international community. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, a very permissive free license, similar to the BSD and MIT licenses.

PostGIS is the extension that gives PostgreSQL its geographic capabilities: geometry types, spatial indexes, calculation functions (distances, intersections, buffers) and coordinate reference system management. It is an OSGeo foundation project, distributed under the GNU GPL version 2 or later. According to the project FAQ, using PostGIS from your own software does not place that software under the GPL: only redistributing a modified version of PostGIS itself does.

PostGIS is the meeting point of the whole LizPack infrastructure. Every LizPack Map instance includes a PostgreSQL/PostGIS database; from the Pro plan upward, you connect to it directly from QGIS Desktop or pgAdmin over an encrypted connection. The Databases product also offers dedicated databases, running PostgreSQL 17 and PostGIS 3.5, from 1 to 10 GB, billed per GB. These databases can be connected to a Lizmap instance, to GeoServer Cloud and to LizPack Field, so that data flows without exports.

• PostgreSQL: PostgreSQL Global Development Group, PostgreSQL License.
• PostGIS: OSGeo project, GNU GPL version 2 or later.
• Role in LizPack: storing data, serving it to QGIS Server and GeoServer, receiving field records.

GeoServer: the OGC services server

GeoServer is a free map server written in Java, an OSGeo foundation project developed by a community of contributors and companies. It is distributed under the GNU GPL version 2.0, with an exception that allows it to be combined with the EMF and XSD libraries. It publishes layers as WMS, WFS, WCS and WMTS from files or databases, with its own styles and its administration console.

GeoServer and QGIS Server do not do quite the same job. QGIS Server serves a QGIS project as it is and powers Lizmap. GeoServer publishes layers that are independent of any project, and targets applications that expect classic OGC services: ArcGIS, Leaflet, OpenLayers or other QGIS users. The two complement each other, and the guide GeoServer, QGIS Server or MapServer compares them in detail.

LizPack offers GeoServer in two ways. GeoServer Cloud gives every account an isolated GeoServer 3 workspace, with the usual console, Shapefile, GeoPackage and GeoTIFF uploads from the dashboard, and one-click connection to the PostGIS database of an instance. It is free up to 200 MB and 10 layers. The LizPack Enterprise edition also includes GeoServer on your own servers. In both cases, GeoServer is what answers: we install it, secure it, update it and monitor it.

QField and QFieldCloud: field data collection

QField is the free mobile app that opens QGIS projects on Android and iOS. It is developed by OPENGIS.ch, a Swiss company, with its community, and released under the GNU GPL version 2 or later. It reproduces the rendering and forms of the QGIS project, works without a network and lets users capture points, lines and polygons with their attributes and photos.

QFieldCloud is the synchronization service designed by the same team for QField. It sends projects to devices and brings the changes made by field teams back. Its code is released under the MIT license. OPENGIS.ch also operates it as an online service under its own name.

LizPack Field is built on the same synchronization technology as QFieldCloud and works with the official QField app, which your field staff install from the app stores. What LizPack adds: the same account as for Lizmap hosting, a dashboard in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese, local support, and, with the Pro plan, records written directly into your PostGIS database. A Lizmap map that displays those layers is then updated with every synchronization. LizPack Viewer, included with LizPack Field, lets you build online maps from the layers of several projects.

GeoNode: the data catalog

GeoNode is a free geographic data catalog platform, an OSGeo foundation project developed by a community of organizations and companies. It is distributed under the GNU GPL. It lets you publish datasets, maps and documents with their metadata, search them and preview them on a map. GeoNode relies on GeoServer to distribute data as OGC services.

LizPack Catalogue is built on GeoNode and GeoServer. LizPack adds what a public catalog does not provide out of the box for selling data: a store (full dataset download, extraction over an area, WMS and WFS access for a period, printable PDF map), payment by bank card and Mobile Money, protection of data for sale, which only shows its preview, and branding in your colors. The catalog is installed on your servers or ours, on quotation.

If you are weighing several free catalogs, the guide GeoNode, CKAN or GeoNetwork compares their strengths.

How LizPack combines this software without replacing it

Each of these programs works very well on its own. The difficulty in production comes from putting them together: a Lizmap version compatible with the QGIS Server version, a PostGIS database reachable by both, an HTTPS certificate to renew, field synchronization that writes into the right database, a GeoServer that reads the same tables. Each program has its own release cycle, and that cycle has to be followed over time.

In practice, LizPack takes care of what happens between and around these programs. A LizPack Map instance is ready in about four minutes, on a subdomain of your choice, with Lizmap, QGIS Server, PostGIS and the tile cache already connected. Updating Lizmap and QGIS Server takes one click. Databases send email warnings as they fill up. The PostGIS database of an instance connects to GeoServer Cloud without a connection form. LizPack Field records land in PostGIS, and therefore in the Lizmap map.

What we do not do matters just as much: we do not rewrite this software, we do not create a closed version of it, we do not sell a license to use it, and we do not invent a project or data format that would tie you to us. New features released by 3Liz, OPENGIS.ch, the QGIS community or the GeoServer community reach you through updates, as their authors designed them.

What this choice guarantees: open formats, reversibility, no license

Building on an open source geospatial infrastructure is not just a matter of principle. For a local government, a consulting firm or an NGO, it translates into practical guarantees that you can check for yourself.

• Open formats. Your projects are QGIS projects, along with the Lizmap plugin configuration file. Your data is in GeoPackage, Shapefile, GeoTIFF or a PostGIS database. Your services follow OGC standards. None of this is specific to LizPack.
• Reversibility. Your projects, files and databases can be retrieved and reinstalled on any Lizmap, QGIS Server, PostGIS or GeoServer server, in house or with another provider. The same software will produce the same map there.
• No software license to pay for. The software is free. What you pay LizPack for is hosting, operations, updates and support, according to the plan you choose, not a right to use software.
• A community rather than a single vendor. This software is publicly documented, taught, used by many organizations and maintained by several players. Its future does not depend on LizPack.
• The option to bring it in house. With LizPack Enterprise, the same software is installed on your own servers and managed from a portal, if your data has to stay there.

For a figure on what free web GIS really costs, including hosting, maintenance time and training, the guide The cost of open source web GIS does the math item by item.

What you pay for, and why

Since the software is free, LizPack prices pay for a service. Here are the current plans; the complete, up-to-date grid is on the Pricing page.

Prices taken from the website's fallback grid as of 11/10/2026, in US dollars. The Pricing page shows current prices.

Frequently asked questions