Shadowmap alternative for any date, free

Shadowmap's free version shows sun and shadow on a worldwide 3D map for today, and choosing another date needs a paid plan. Sundial lets you pick any date and time for free, on 3D buildings from OpenStreetMap, with a map of sun hours for the day. It does fewer things than Shadowmap's paid tiers, so it depends what you need.

Sundial is free, with no sign-up. Shadowmap details checked on its own site and app store pages in October 2026.

What Shadowmap does well

Shadowmap, made by Shadowmap Technologies GmbH, is a polished 3D sun simulator with a web app and apps for iOS and Android. Its pricing page says one account works across all of them.

The free version is generous for a single day. It includes the sun path and compass, worldwide 3D buildings with terrain, worldwide 3D trees and the option to change the time of the current day. You can edit the 3D world for free too: adjust existing buildings and trees, place simple shapes such as cuboids and cylinders, and share the scene. No registration is needed to start.

Terrain and trees are two clear advantages over Sundial, which treats the ground as flat and only shows trees that are individually mapped. Shadowmap's paid plans add more on top:

• Explorer: any date and time in the past or future, full camera freedom and a first-person view.
• Home: satellite and outdoor maps, high-quality 3D buildings in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Vienna and Tokyo, a 14-day weather and UV forecast with history, and control over default building height.
• Studio: interactive 3D solar analytics, Google's global 3D buildings, uploading your own 3D models and embedding projects on other sites. Its App Store listing also mentions exporting solar data to CSV.

Shadowmap prices

These are the in-app prices on the UK and US App Store, as of October 2026. The pricing page lists the same plans for the web app.

Where Sundial is different

Sundial is free for every date. Drag the date slider through the year and it snaps to the equinoxes and solstices, so you can jump from a June evening to a December morning in a couple of moves. That matters most for house hunting, because viewings tend to happen in one season and the winter light is the part you most need to check.

The Sun hours view colours every patch of ground and roof by its hours of direct sun on the chosen day, and you can tap a spot to read the total. Sunrise, solar noon, sunset and day length are shown in local time. There's no account and nothing to install, and the address bar always holds a link to the exact view.

What Sundial doesn't have: terrain, weather, editing tools, satellite maps or native apps.

Side by side

Shadowmap sources: shadowmap.org/pricing, App Store (UK), App Store (US). Prices as of October 2026.

Which one to use

Choose Shadowmap if you want a phone app, if the site is on a slope, if you want to model an extension or a new tree before it exists, or if you need weather forecasts and professional solar analytics. For solar installers and architects, Studio's high-resolution buildings and model uploads go well beyond anything Sundial does.

Choose Sundial if you want to check a property, garden or street across the seasons without paying. The Royal Crescent in Bath is a good example. On 21 June the sun reaches 62.1° at 13:12 and the day lasts 16 hours 37 minutes. On 21 December it rises at 08:13, peaks at 15.2° at 12:08 and sets at 16:04. The link above opens that December noon, so you can see how far the crescent's shadow stretches into the gardens behind it. Then drag the date back to summer on the sun path map and compare.