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Ultimaps vs MapChart

Choose MapChart if

you color maps by hand, want free PNG, SVG or PDF files up to 10,000 px with its credit, or need a map Ultimaps does not have, such as EU NUTS 3 regions or a historical map. MapChart needs no account at all.

Choose Ultimaps if

your colors come from a spreadsheet, you need pins, or the map has to live on a website with tooltips and popups. Ultimaps matches your rows to regions, builds the color scale and legend, and saves every map to a free account.

Compared on by the Ultimaps team. Sources below.

Try Ultimaps free

When Ultimaps fits better than MapChart

Your data is already in a spreadsheet

MapChart's editor has no data import. Its Excel workbook lists every region, you fill each one's color by hand, then paste a settings file back into MapChart. In Ultimaps you paste the table or upload the file, and the color scale and legend come from the numbers. A world map is about 200 countries you no longer fill in cell by cell.

You need pins

MapChart has no pins. Ultimaps puts pins on the same map, from addresses, coordinates or a file, with labels you can style and move. Free accounts get 100 address lookups a month, Pro gets 5,000.

The map goes into a slide or a report

MapChart gives you a title, a legend you can drag and one switch for region names. In Ultimaps the map is a canvas you edit in place. Drag any label where you want it, rename it with a double-click, resize or rotate it. Add free text, rectangles, lines with arrowheads and callouts tied to a region.

The map has to work on a website

MapChart's output is an image. A published Ultimaps map has tooltips, popups, click-through links and zoom. It embeds with one iframe, and its link turns into the live map when you paste it into Notion, WordPress, Ghost or Substack.

Your maps should be there next time

Free MapChart maps live in a downloaded settings file or in your browser. Saving to an account comes with MapChart Plus. Ultimaps saves every map to a free account, with folders and search, and every plan has unlimited maps.

Ultimaps vs MapChart, feature by feature

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Ultimaps and MapChart compared feature by feature
FeatureUltimapsMapChart
Better on Ultimaps
Data importYes. CSV, TSV, Excel, Google Sheets, Notion or paste. AI from a prompt or a picture of a mapPartly. Not in the editor. An Excel macro workbook, a Google Sheets add-on and an Airtable extension[1]
Matching rows to regionsYes. Automatic, by region name or codePartly. Excel workbook: a fixed list of region names you fill in[1]
Color scale from numbersYes. Suggested from the data. Gradient, steps or groups. Equal interval, quantile, Jenks, pretty or customPartly. Not in the editor. The Excel workbook sets colors by hand. The Sheets add-on's method is not documented[2]
PinsYes. From addresses (geocoded), coordinates or a fileNo[2]
Region labelsYes. Names, values or both. Drag, rename, resize or rotate any label right on the map. Crowded labels are listed for you to fix instead of hiddenPartly. One switch shows the region names, in one font and color for all[3]
Text and arrows on the mapYes. Free text, rectangles, lines with arrowheads and callouts tied to regions, anywhere on the canvasNo. Title and legend only[2]
Interactive mapsYes. Tooltips, popups, click-through links, zoom and an interactive legendNo. Output is an image[4]
Embed on a websiteYes. Iframe, and share links that turn into live maps in Notion, WordPress, Ghost and Substack. Free with a small "made with ultimaps.com" creditNo[4]
US ZIP codesYes. ZIP (Census ZCTA) maps for every state, DC, Puerto Rico, Guam and the US Virgin Islands, plus a national 3-digit map. No nationwide 5-digit mapNo. Not among its maps[5]
Both do it
Coloring by handYes. Click regions with the Bucket Fill tool, alongside your dataYes. The core of the tool, with pattern fills[2]
MapsYes. 250+ base maps, checked by hand and kept current: world, continents, most countries by state or province, every US state by county and by ZIP codeYes. 100+ maps, incl. EU NUTS 2 and 3, US counties, congressional districts, UK postcode areas, historical maps[5]
US countiesYes. All ~3,100 in one map, plus a county map for every stateYes. A US county map, with an Interstate highways overlay[5]
Works without an accountYes. You can build and export without one. A free account saves and publishesYes. Works without one. Accounts exist only for Plus[6]
Credit on free maps"made with ultimaps.com" on free PNGs and embeds. None on Pro or a one-map pass export"Created with mapchart.net" tag or another credit, required[7]
Where MapChart goes further
Free exportsPartly. PNG at screen resolution, sharp for web pages and slides, with a small "made with ultimaps.com" credit. Print-size PNG (6×) with Pro or a one-map passYes. PNG, JPEG, SVG and PDF (raster), 500 to 10,000 px, with a required credit[8]
SVGPartly. Vector SVG with the title, legend and labels kept. €12.50 for one map, or ProYes. Free, with the credit[9]
PDFPartly. High-resolution PDF (an image of the map, not vector), on Pro or the one-map passPartly. Rasterized PDF, free, with the credit[9]
Paid plans€12.50 ($14.90) for one map (24-hour pass), or Pro €49/month or €499/yearPlus: US$39.99 a year (no ads, saved maps)[6]

Not stated means the tool’s own pages do not say, or we could not confirm it. Numbers in brackets link to the source.

Pricing: Ultimaps vs MapChart

Both are free to start. MapChart's paid plan removes the ads and saves your maps to an account. Ultimaps charges when you want a file without the credit or at print resolution: once for one map, or monthly for all of them.

MapChart plans
MapChart planPrice
FreeUS$0, every map and tool, with ads[6]
MapChart Plus: No ads, up to 1,000 saved maps, access from any device. Its FAQ page says $49.99, its checkout $39.99.US$39.99 a year[6]

Ultimaps plans

Free

€0

Free forever

Make maps from your data and share them. No card, and no sign-up until you save or publish.

Open Studio

No sign-up or card needed

What’s included

Pro

: Save 15%

Billed monthly: €49. Billed yearly: €41.58/month

Billed €499 yearly

For professionals who publish maps often. Pays for itself from about 4 maps a month.

Get Pro

Cancel anytime

Everything in Free, plus

Custom

Custom

Tailored to your needs

For organizations that need maps in their own brand, a map we don't have or custom map behavior.

Talk to us

Custom maps from €49 per map

Everything in Pro, plus

Just one map? €12.50 per map

High-res PNG, SVG and PDF with no credit. The files are yours to use commercially, forever, and you can re-export that map for 24 hours.

Exporting 4 or more maps a month? Pro costs less.

Make your map

No card for Free · Cancel anytime, Pro runs to the end of your paid period · 30% off for non-profits

Visa, Mastercard, Amex, PayPal

The same data in both tools

One table, two tools: life expectancy at birth in 200 countries and territories in 2024, from the World Bank. Download the CSV and try both yourself.

World map of life expectancy at birth in 2024, countries shaded in six green classes, from the World Bank
Life expectancy at birth, 2024, made in Ultimaps from 200 rows. Data: World Bank, World Development Indicators (SP.DYN.LE00.IN) (CC BY 4.0).
Open this map in Studio Download the data (CSV)

In Ultimaps

  1. Open Studio, start a World map and open Import Data.
  2. Paste the two columns (country code and value) or upload the CSV. Ultimaps matches all 200 rows to regions.
  3. Ultimaps suggests a color scale with round class edges and builds the legend. Change the palette, the number of classes or the break method if you like.
  4. Export a PNG, or publish the map to share it by link or embed it.

In MapChart

  1. Download MapChart's Excel workbook and open its World (simple) sheet, which lists every country.
  2. Decide your value ranges yourself, then fill each country's COLOR cell with the color of its range.
  3. Click Export Config File and paste the text file into MapChart.
  4. Name each color group in the legend and download the image.

MapChart’s own guide: Using Excel to speed up map creation on MapChart

Switching from MapChart

You do not have to rebuild a MapChart map region by region.

  1. Download your MapChart map as a PNG.
  2. In Ultimaps Studio, start a new map on the same base map and choose Upload Image in the Import Data dialog.
  3. AI reads the legend, the region colors and the title into an editable map. You review it before anything is applied.
  4. If your colors came from a table, import the table instead. The legend comes from the data, and importing an updated table later keeps your manual colors and renamed legend items.

Where MapChart is still ahead

  • Maps Ultimaps does not have, such as EU NUTS 2 and NUTS 3 regions, Brazil and Mexico municipalities, UK postcode areas, and historical maps.
  • Free exports: PNG, JPEG, SVG and a rasterized PDF up to 10,000 px, all free with a credit. Free Ultimaps PNGs are at screen resolution, and print-size PNG, SVG and PDF need Pro or a one-map pass.
  • Nothing to sign up for, ever. Ultimaps also works without an account, and a free one saves your maps, which MapChart reserves for Plus.
  • Free mobile apps for iOS and Android.

Ultimaps vs MapChart: questions

It depends on how you color your maps. If you click regions by hand and want free high-resolution files, MapChart does that well: every map is free, with ads, and exports go up to 10,000 px. If your colors come from data, Ultimaps saves the manual work. You paste a table or upload a CSV, Excel file or Google Sheet, Ultimaps matches each row to a region by name or code, and it builds the color scale and legend for you. Ultimaps also adds what MapChart does not have at all: pins from addresses, interactive maps with tooltips and popups, and embeds for your website. Maps are saved to a free account. Free PNG exports are at screen resolution with a small "made with ultimaps.com" credit, and a one-map pass of €12.50 unlocks a clean high-resolution PNG, SVG and PDF for 24 hours.

Not in the editor itself. MapChart offers a separate Excel macro workbook with one sheet per supported map, listing every region. You fill each region's color cell by hand, export a settings file and paste it into MapChart. The workbook covers a set of maps, including US counties, congressional districts, EU NUTS 2 and 3, a simple world map and UK postcode areas. There is also a Google Sheets add-on, free, with a one-time Premium of US$19.99 that adds more maps, and an Airtable extension. Ultimaps imports Excel, CSV, TSV, Google Sheets or Notion data, or a pasted table, directly into the map. It matches rows to regions automatically and builds a choropleth or category coloring from the column you choose, with the legend.

Yes. MapChart exports PNG, JPEG, SVG and PDF for free, at 500 to 10,000 px. Its PDF is rasterized: it wraps an image of the map rather than vector shapes, according to its own changelog from March 2026. Every MapChart map carries a required credit, a built-in tag or a reference of your own. In Ultimaps, free exports are PNG at screen resolution with a small "made with ultimaps.com" credit. The SVG is a vector file and the PDF holds an image of the map, as MapChart's does. Both come without a credit and need Pro (€49 a month or €499 a year) or a one-map pass of €12.50 that unlocks one map's clean exports for 24 hours. The Pro PNG is 6 times the canvas size, for example 7,200 by 5,400 px for a 4:3 map. If you need a free SVG and do not mind the credit, MapChart is the cheaper choice.

No. MapChart produces images, so on a website you can show a picture of the map but not an interactive one. MapChart Plus has share links, but they load the map's settings into the MapChart editor rather than showing a live map. Ultimaps publishes interactive maps. Visitors hover a region to see a tooltip, click it for a popup or a link to another page, and zoom in. You embed the map with one iframe in any site that accepts HTML, including Squarespace, Wix and Webflow, and pasting the map's link into Notion, WordPress, Ghost or Substack turns it into the live map. When you edit the map in Studio, the embed updates. Publishing needs a free account, and free embeds carry a small "made with ultimaps.com" credit that Pro removes.

MapChart Plus costs US$39.99 a year on its plan page and checkout (its FAQ page says $49.99). It removes ads, saves up to 1,000 maps to an account you can open from any device, and adds a share link. Everything else in MapChart is free. Ultimaps Pro costs €49 a month or €499 a year. It includes SVG and PDF files, which MapChart gives you free with a credit, plus things MapChart does not offer, such as exports without a credit, interactive maps and embeds without branding, templates, and 5,000 address lookups and 500 AI requests a month. If you only need one clean map, the Ultimaps one-map pass costs €12.50 ($14.90 in US dollars) and lasts 24 hours. The Ultimaps free plan already saves unlimited maps to an account.

Yes, in two ways. If your map came from a table, import that table into Ultimaps: rows are matched to regions by name or code, and the color scale and legend come from the data. If you colored the map by hand, download it from MapChart as a PNG and use Upload Image in the Import Data dialog when you start a new map. AI reads the legend first, then the color of each region and the map title, and shows you the result to review before anything is applied. It works best when you start from the same base map as the picture. Guests get 5 AI requests in total and free accounts 20 a month, so moving a handful of maps costs nothing. Faint or unpainted regions are left out rather than guessed, so check the review.

More comparisons

MapChart alternatives

Nine map makers for people who outgrew hand coloring, each with its free plan, price and best use.

Ultimaps vs Datawrapper

Thousands of basemaps and charts in one tool, or popups, hand coloring and one clean map without a subscription.

Ultimaps vs Flourish

Animated data stories and 3D globes, or map files, built-in county and ZIP maps and public prices.

Sources

  1. [1]blog.mapchart.net/tutorials/using-excel-to-speed-up-map-creation-on-mapchart/, checked November 6, 2026
  2. [2]www.mapchart.net/tutorial.html, checked November 6, 2026
  3. [3]www.mapchart.net/world.html, checked November 8, 2026
  4. [4]www.mapchart.net/tutorial-plus.html, checked November 6, 2026
  5. [5]www.mapchart.net/, checked November 6, 2026
  6. [6]www.mapchart.net/plus.html, checked November 6, 2026
  7. [7]www.mapchart.net/terms.html, checked November 6, 2026
  8. [8]www.mapchart.net/usa-counties.html, checked November 6, 2026
  9. [9]www.mapchart.net/changelog.html, checked November 6, 2026

Ultimaps figures are from our own product as of November 8, 2026.

Ultimaps is not affiliated with MapChart. MapChart is a trademark of its owner. Figures were read from MapChart’s own pages, linked above, on the dates shown. If something here is wrong or out of date, write to [email protected] and we will correct it.

  • : Re-checked: free-plan credits stated for every tool, Ultimaps export and MCP rows added, claims where other tools lead re-verified.
  • : First published. MapChart facts checked on its own site on November 6, 2026.