Geotab

Best Self Hosted Alternatives to Geotab

A curated collection of the 2 best self hosted alternatives to Geotab.

Geotab provides connected vehicle telematics and fleet management software and hardware—GPS tracking, vehicle diagnostics, driver safety, fuel and route optimization, and analytics—to help businesses monitor, manage and optimize vehicle fleets.

Alternatives List

#1
Traccar

Traccar

Open-source GPS tracking server with web/mobile apps, maps, alerts, geofencing, reports, and support for hundreds of GPS protocols for fleet and asset tracking.

Traccar screenshot

Traccar is a self-hosted GPS tracking platform for monitoring vehicles, fleets, and mobile assets in real time. It includes a device protocol server, a web UI for live tracking and reporting, and mobile apps that can act as GPS trackers.

Key Features

  • Supports a large number of GPS tracker protocols (hundreds) and device types
  • Live tracking with map views, device status, and historical playback
  • Geofencing with enter/exit events and configurable notifications
  • Alerts and event rules (e.g., overspeed, ignition, movement, battery, maintenance)
  • Reporting and exports (trips, stops, routes, events; common formats like CSV)
  • User/device management with permissions and multi-user support
  • Mobile apps (Android/iOS) for tracking phones and sending location to the server
  • Extensible integrations via API/webhooks and push notification channels

Use Cases

  • Fleet operations: dispatch oversight, driver behavior monitoring, and trip history
  • Asset/security tracking: geofence alerts for trailers, equipment, or stolen vehicles
  • Personal tracking: monitor family vehicles or phones with historical routes

Limitations and Considerations

  • Full device compatibility depends on tracker firmware/protocol correctness; some devices may require custom configuration
  • Map/Geocoding features depend on external map providers or configured map tiles/geocoder

Traccar is widely used for fleet and asset tracking due to its broad protocol support, practical web UI, and mature alerting/reporting. It is a good fit when you need an on-prem GPS tracking server with mobile tracking options and integrations.

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#2
OwnTracks Recorder

OwnTracks Recorder

A lightweight backend for OwnTracks that records location updates and geofence transitions, provides a web UI and an API for querying tracks and events.

OwnTracks Recorder is the server-side component of the OwnTracks ecosystem for collecting and storing location updates published by the OwnTracks mobile apps (typically via MQTT/HTTP). It persists location points and transition events so you can review historical movement, audit geofence enter/leave activity, and integrate location data into other systems.

Key Features

  • Ingests OwnTracks location publishes and stores them for later retrieval
  • Records geofence transition events (enter/leave) alongside location history
  • Web interface for browsing users/devices and viewing recorded data
  • HTTP API for querying stored locations/events for automation and integrations
  • Works with common OwnTracks deployments using MQTT brokers for transport
  • Designed as a focused “recorder” backend (separate from the mobile clients)

Use Cases

  • Personal/family location history archive with geofence activity logging
  • Fleet/asset track logging for small deployments (vehicles, bikes, devices)
  • Feeding recorded location data into dashboards or home-automation workflows

Limitations and Considerations

  • UI and analytics are intentionally minimal compared to full fleet-tracking suites; many users pair it with other visualization tools.

Recorder is a good fit when you want a simple, controllable store for OwnTracks data with basic browsing and programmatic access. It complements an MQTT-based OwnTracks setup by keeping durable history and events you can query or export as needed.

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Why choose an open source alternative?

  • •Data ownership: Keep your data on your own servers
  • •No vendor lock-in: Freedom to switch or modify at any time
  • •Cost savings: Reduce or eliminate subscription fees
  • •Transparency: Audit the code and know exactly what's running