Latest Status - August 30, 2026

Lots of improvements with v1.2.0 to make map exports easier, visual aids for colors, and managing Postgres.

See Change Log for more details.

Next planned release v1.3.0 will update npm to a more recent version, as well as other dependecies.

General Info

TileMill is a modern map design studio powered by Node.js and Mapnik.

• TileMill is tested on Linux with Node 8.11.3 LTS, and on MacOS 10.14 with Node 8.15.0 lts/carbon
• TileMill currently only works in server mode, there is no standalone GUI. Your browser is used for the interface.
• There are no native packages provided. Installation requires cloning this repo. See details below under Installation.
• Tilemill should theoretically work on the Windows platform, but it isn't tested.

Dependencies

• Mapnik > v3.6.2 (but may work on earlier versions)
• Node.js: (earlier Node.js versions may work, but are not tested)
  • Ubuntu: v8.11.x
  • OSX: v8.15.x lts/carbon
• Protobuf: Ubunto: these need to be installed: libprotobuf-lite and protoc

Installation

Quick installation instructions for OSX:

git clone https://github.com/tilemill-project/tilemill.git
cd tilemill
nvm install lts/carbon
nvm use v8.15.0
npm install
npm start

Installation Scripts

Scripts have been created that will do most everything for you. They were written for MacOS, but may still be usable for Ubunto and Windows with some modification. (If you are successful with Ubunto and Windows, please post an Issue to let us know!)

Installation Script Instructions

Full Installation instructions can be found in the TileMill Documentation.

Docker

It is also possible to run tilemill as a docker container:

git clone https://github.com/tilemill-project/tilemill.git
cd tilemill
docker-compose up

This will host a docker container which uses the port 20008 and 20009 for tilemill, tilemill is then reachable under http://localhost:20009 . Additionally, a postgis instance is started as well which is reachable under

host=localhost port=5432 user=docker password=docker dbname=gis

Docker hosted volumes are used for the containers, hence if you want to use sqlite dbs you have to interact with those to get the dbs into the docker container.

Build Status, Running Tests, Updating Documentation

See CONTRIBUTING.md