Comparison

Pacenote Maps vs Open Road

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Pacenote Maps

This navigation app uses AI to generate custom driving routes based on your preferences, from scenic mountain passes to coastal drives. Discover community-curated roads, plan group events, and navigate with voice guidance or CarPlay integration.

Highlights
  • AI-generated custom routes
  • Community-curated road discovery
  • Turn-by-turn voice and CarPlay navigation
  • Event hosting and joining
  • Route saving and organization
  • Scenic drive generation
Features
Read full description

Pacenote is a map and navigation app that lets you generate drives with AI. Discover scenic canyon roads, touge-style mountain passes, or relaxed coastal routes What you can do: Generate drives with AI – Prompt the drive that you want and Pacenote will give you a complete end to end route ready to use with CarPlay. Find great roads – Browse a constantly-growing catalogue of community-curated roads with photos, surface notes, and distance information. Create custom routes – Tap to add any number of checkpoints, drag to reorder them, and Pacenote will generate a turn-by-turn route that suits your exact plan. Navigate with confidence – Get voice guidance on your phone or full turn-by-turn directions on CarPlay, complete with ETA, speed and upcoming turn indicators. Host or join events – Post a morning “cars & coffee,” a weekend group drive, or a full rally. Set the meeting point, date and start time; friends can RSVP and follow the shared route. Stay organised – Save favourite roads and past drives to your profile so they’re ready the next time you head out. Whether you’re looking for a quick back-road blast, planning a scenic holiday drive, or meeting friends for a casual car meet, Pacenote puts everything in one place—maps, routes and social planning—so you can focus on the drive.

About

Open Road

This app automatically logs your drives, recording routes, mileage, and top speeds to build a personal map of your travels. It offers features like live friend tracking, speed camera alerts, and navigation, with premium options for deeper stats and community features.

Highlights
  • Automatic drive logging
  • Personalized road map
  • Live friend tracking
  • Speed camera alerts
  • CarPlay integration
  • Navigation with recording
  • Convoy voice chat
Read full description

open road tracks every drive for you. it records your route, miles and top speed, then adds each road to your own map. see your full history, your records, and the drivers you follow. it works with carplay. pro unlocks the community map, live friends and deeper stats. 3 days free on the yearly plan. 50,000+ drivers you drive every day and almost none of it gets kept. the store run, the loop, the drive to a friend's, the long way home. open road keeps all of it, so the map of where you have driven fills in on its own and any drive you took is still there a year later. drive tracker, drive log, trip log, route tracker, car stats, mileage, odometer, driving history. people call it a lot of things. it is the same idea. every drive saved without you doing anything. what you get • your drive log: every drive with the route drawn, the time, the distance and the day you took it. • your map: every road you have driven, filling in as you go. • your garage: every car you own, tracked on its own. • your friends on one live map while they drive. • speed cameras and average-speed zones on the map, plus police and hazard reports from drivers. • navigation built in, and the drive keeps recording while you use it. • convoy voice chat with your group, and the recap after you park. • streaks and milestones for every drive you take. • weather on your past drives, so you remember the day how it was. • a 3D map and a share card for the drives worth showing. • long drives are easy on the battery, and every drive saves and syncs. the map is the part people keep coming back to. one road at a time it turns into a picture of everywhere you have taken your car, and it is yours. it does not reset, it does not expire, and it keeps filling in for as long as you drive. who it is for drivers who care about the road. the person who takes the long way. the weekend trip that ends up being the best part of the month. the group that drives together and wants one map for all of it. anyone who looks forward to getting in the car. how far it goes free to download. premium adds depth: more of your history, deeper stats, and more of what you already use. 30 languages. what drivers say "App is clean and far better than competition." Jan 21, 2026 "Works well super clean interface." Jan 25, 2026 drive responsibly. use where legal. open road terms: openroaddrive.com/terms privacy policy: openroaddrive.com/privacy community guidelines: openroaddrive.com/community-guidelines

Screenshots

Pacenote Maps4 screens
Open Road4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Open Road at 4.7 against Pacenote Maps's 4.0. Open Road also leads on ratings volume (826 vs 6). Pacenote Maps's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 4) and ads (none vs shown). On price, review sentiment, update cadence and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Open Road sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per 7 days. Pacenote Maps asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Open Road holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Open Road has 826 ratings behind it against 6, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 64% of Pacenote Maps's written reviews are positive against 61% of Open Road's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pacenote Maps ships an update weekly, Open Road every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on November 4, 2026 and November 9, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Pacenote Maps versus Open Road: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPacenote MapsOpen Road
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.0 (6 ratings)4.7 (826 ratings) — better
Positive reviews63.6% of reviews — better61.0% of reviews
Number of ratings6826 — better
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 6 days — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.4 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size98 MB274 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperPacenote Maps LLCOPENROAD LLC

Customer experience

Pacenote Maps

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews11 reviews
Positive63.6%
Neutral0.0%
Negative36.4%

Open Road

All ratings826 ratings
Positive92.7%
Neutral2.9%
Negative4.4%
Written reviews82 reviews
Positive61.0%
Neutral11.0%
Negative28.0%

In-app purchases

None

Pacenote Maps

No in-app purchases

4 purchases

Open Road

Subscriptions4
  • Open Road Pro Weekly$2.997 Days
  • Monthly Paid$9.991 Month
  • Annual Paid3 Days trial$39.991 Year
Show 1 more
  • Premium Annual B3 Days trial$39.991 Year

Questions

Is Pacenote Maps free?
Pacenote Maps is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Open Road free?
Open Road is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Pacenote Maps or Open Road?
Open Road is rated higher. Pacenote Maps averages 4.0 out of 5 from 6 ratings, while Open Road averages 4.7 from 826 ratings.
Do Pacenote Maps or Open Road have ads?
Open Road shows ads; Pacenote Maps does not.
Which is updated more often, Pacenote Maps or Open Road?
Pacenote Maps ships an update weekly, and Open Road every 6 days. Most recently, Pacenote Maps was updated on November 4, 2026 and Open Road on November 9, 2026.

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