Over the past decade, a new category of outdoor apps has quietly become essential for hikers around the world: community-driven hiking platforms.
Apps like AllTrails, Komoot, Wikiloc and Outdooractive all follow the same core idea:
Combine real trails recorded by real people with simple navigation tools and a personal hiking log - available both on the web and on your phone.
While each platform has its own strengths and regional popularity, they all share a surprisingly similar foundation.
At their core, all these platforms are built around outdoor routes.
They allow people to:
They're not just navigation tools, and they're not just social networks - they sit somewhere in between.
Each platform is typically split into two complementary parts:
You can use only one - but together, they make much more sense.
The web version of these platforms acts as a central place for your hiking life.
Note that the features of the web version are usually also available in the mobile app, but they are generally much easier to use in the web version on a larger screen.
Over time, your profile becomes a living archive of hikes you've done and routes you've saved for a future adventure.
Each recorded activity is stored, mapped, and easy to revisit later. There's no manual curation required - the archive simply grows as you hike.
For many people, this becomes their long-term memory of outdoor adventures.
Before heading out - especially in unfamiliar areas - these platforms are often the first stop.
Instead of planning from scratch, you can:
This isn't strict planning. It's more about inspiration and filtering - avoiding bad ideas and spotting promising ones early.
Most of these platforms provide tools for planning your route, based on publicly available trails. These generated routes can then be used in the mobile app, or exported as .gpx files and used in other navigation apps.
All these platforms are social, but in a restrained way.
You can follow other hikers, see what routes they upload and leave ratings or short comments. But there's no pressure to perform, post frequently, or engage constantly. The social layer exists mainly to add trust and context to routes - not to compete for attention.
While the web app is about discovery and reflection, the mobile app is what you actually use outdoors.
This is where these platforms become practical tools rather than just libraries.
Once you've chosen a route, the app helps you orient yourself and reach the starting point - something that's surprisingly valuable in rural or mountainous areas where signage is limited.
One of the most common use cases is simply following a route someone else has already walked.
On the screen, you typically see your current position, the route line, the elevation profile and in indication whether you're still on track.
There's usually no need for turn-by-turn instructions. Just knowing you're following the intended path provides confidence - especially in forests, fog, or unfamiliar terrain.
Note that on most platforms, this feature is part of a paid tier!
All these apps make recording a hike deliberately simple. You start recording at the beginning, can add waypoints as you go and stop recording at the end.
Once saved, the track syncs to your profile and becomes part of your hiking history. You can keep it private or share it - with no obligation either way. It is also possible to update the descriptions, add photos and any other information that could help other hikers to safely pass your route.
Although they're built on the same ideas, each platform gained popularity in different parts of the world. Following is based on publicly available estimates as of end of 2025:
The United States is dominated by AllTrails. The app has over 60 million users worldwide and offers over 500,000 trails.
Central and Northern Europe often prefers Komoot, which is Europe's largest outdoor community with over 45 million registered users, founded in Germany in 2010.
Southern Europe and South America tend to lean toward Wikiloc, which was founded in Spain and has over 33 million trails available worldwide. Wikiloc serves as the most internationally diverse platform.
Outdooractive has particularly strong presence in the Alpine regions - Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and surrounding areas. It's offer includes specialized Alpine Club maps for climbing in the Alps.
This isn't about one app being better than the others - it's about where each platform built a critical mass of contributors early on, and how that shaped the trail coverage we see today.
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