ShadeMap alternative: how Sundial compares

If you want to see which buildings shade a street, square or garden, with the sun's path drawn above them and a map of sun hours for the day, Sundial is a free alternative to ShadeMap. If you need shadows from hills and mountains, ShadeMap is the better choice, and its basic map is free too.

Sundial is free, with no sign-up. ShadeMap details checked on its own site in October 2026.

What ShadeMap does well

ShadeMap describes itself as "every mountain, building and tree shadow in the world simulated for any date and time". It runs in the browser and covers the whole planet.

Terrain is the big difference. ShadeMap models hills and mountains, so it can show when a valley drops into shadow or which side of a ridge keeps the evening sun. Sundial treats the ground as flat and can't do that at all.

It goes further in other ways as well. The free map estimates tree locations and heights from satellite imagery. There are "Hours in the sun" and "Annual sunlight" views, a trail-shade tool for GPX and KML routes, and a drawing tool for adding your own buildings at a set height. According to Bellingcat's toolkit entry, its buildings come from Overture Maps, and a Chrome extension adds its shadow layer to OpenStreetMap, AllTrails, Gaia GPS and CalTopo.

For a small area where the free data isn't precise enough, ShadeMap sells premium LiDAR and photogrammetry data: US$3.99 to view one square kilometre for 30 days (as of October 2026). The app also offers a paid PRO upgrade that it describes as adding more buildings, 3D mountains and contour lines. Developers can build its shadow engine into Leaflet or Mapbox maps through a paid API.

Where Sundial is different

Sundial is narrower and built around one address. It loads the buildings within 300 m of the point you choose, draws them in 3D from OpenStreetMap footprints and heights, and lets you tilt and turn the scene. The arc of the sun for that day sits above the rooftops, next to the June and December solstice arcs, so you can see where the light comes from as well as where the shadow lands.

Switch to Sun hours and each patch of ground and roof is coloured by how many hours of direct sun it gets that day. Tap a spot to read its total. Sunrise, solar noon, sunset, day length and the sun's height and bearing are listed in the location's own time zone.

Every view has its own link, so you can send someone the exact place, date and time. Nothing needs an account, a download or a payment.

ShadeMap and Sundial side by side

ShadeMap sources: shademap.app, shademap.app/about, Bellingcat Online Investigation Toolkit. Prices as of October 2026.

Which one to use

Pick ShadeMap when the land itself matters: a walk in the hills, a mountain town, a cottage under a ridge, or a sunset that might disappear behind a fell. It's also the one to use for a whole year's sunlight, or when you need survey-grade surface data for a small area and are happy to pay for it.

Pick Sundial for a street, garden or flat in a town or city, where the question is which neighbouring buildings block the sun and at what time. Take Soho Square in London. On 21 June the sun rises at 04:44, climbs to 61.9° at 13:03 and sets at 21:22. By 21 December it only reaches 15.0° at noon. Open the link above and drag the date between the two to see how far the shade from the surrounding blocks reaches across the square.

The two work well together. Check a hilly site in ShadeMap first, then look at the street-level detail in the sun path map.