What if you could track any device, anywhere in the world, using completely free and open-source technology? What if this system had been battle-tested by millions of users over nearly two decades? Meet GPS Tracker—the original open-source GPS tracking system that has quietly become one of the most successful location-tracking solutions ever built, with over 2.2 million downloads since 2007.

From Humble Beginnings to Global Impact

Back in 2007, GPS tracking was expensive, proprietary, and often limited to enterprise solutions. I set out to change that by creating a completely open-source alternative that anyone could use, modify, and deploy. What started as a simple project has grown into a comprehensive tracking ecosystem used by fleet managers, researchers, families, and developers worldwide.

The numbers tell the story: 2.2 million downloads, 800+ GitHub stars, and active use across every continent. But beyond the metrics, GPS Tracker has powered everything from wildlife research projects to family safety apps, proving that open-source solutions can compete with—and often surpass—commercial alternatives.

Version 7: A Complete Modern Transformation

While GPS Tracker has been reliable for years, I recently completed a comprehensive rewrite for Version 7. Every component—the PHP/JS server, Android client, and iOS client—has been rebuilt from the ground up using modern frameworks and best practices. The Android app now uses Kotlin with MVVM architecture, the iOS app leverages SwiftUI, and the server features clean, documented PHP with responsive JavaScript.

This isn’t just a refresh—it’s a complete transformation that maintains the simplicity and reliability users love while adding the performance and maintainability that developers need. You can see the system in action right now at our live demo, tracking real devices in real-time.

Complete Ecosystem: Mobile to Maps

GPS Tracker isn’t just an app—it’s a complete tracking ecosystem. Native mobile clients capture location data efficiently in the background, sending updates to your own server where a responsive web interface displays real-time positions and historical routes. Choose from multiple map providers including Google Maps and OpenStreetMaps, customize update intervals, and track unlimited devices.

The system tracks more than just location. Monitor speed, battery levels, altitude, and accuracy. View comprehensive route history with playback capabilities. Support multiple users and devices from a single installation. And because it’s self-hosted, your location data stays completely under your control—no third-party services, no monthly fees, no privacy concerns.

Built for Real-World Use

Seventeen years of user feedback has shaped GPS Tracker into a robust, production-ready solution. The system handles everything from lightweight personal tracking to enterprise fleet management. Database support includes MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite for different deployment scenarios. The mobile apps work reliably in the background without draining batteries, and the web interface responds beautifully on everything from phones to large displays.

Installation is straightforward—whether you’re deploying on Apache, Nginx, or shared hosting. The comprehensive documentation walks you through setup, configuration, and customization. And because the entire system is open source, you can modify anything to fit your specific needs.

Built Open Source, Shared with the World

GPS Tracker has always been about making powerful technology freely available. The open-source approach has enabled developers worldwide to learn from the system, adapt it for their needs, and suggest improvements. The codebase features comprehensive documentation, clean architecture, and modular design that makes it accessible whether you’re studying the code or contributing enhancements

This project proves that open-source software can be both powerful and accessible. By sharing the code freely, we’ve enabled countless developers to learn, adapt, and build upon the foundation. The MIT license ensures that GPS Tracker will remain free and open forever.

From Fleet Management to Family Safety

The versatility of GPS Tracker has led to some amazing use cases. Fleet operators track delivery vehicles across multiple cities. Researchers monitor wildlife migration patterns. Families keep tabs on elderly relatives or teenage drivers. Hikers share their routes with emergency contacts. Event organizers track equipment and personnel.

What makes these diverse applications possible is the system’s flexibility. Self-hosting means you control the data and can customize every aspect of the experience. Multiple database options support different scales of deployment. The clean API makes integration with other systems straightforward.

The Technical Foundation

Under the hood, GPS Tracker showcases clean, maintainable code architecture. The server component uses modern PHP practices with environment-based configuration and support for multiple database backends. The mobile clients follow platform best practices—Kotlin with MVVM on Android, SwiftUI with MVVM on iOS—ensuring smooth performance and easy maintenance.

The system is designed for reliability. Background tracking works efficiently without draining device batteries. The server handles concurrent requests gracefully and stores location data with precision. The web interface updates in real-time and works across all modern browsers and devices.

Join a Proven Open Source Success

GPS Tracker represents nearly two decades of continuous improvement and real-world testing. The Version 7 rewrite brings this proven system into the modern era while maintaining the simplicity and reliability that has made it successful worldwide.

Whether you need a simple family tracking solution or a complex fleet management system, GPS Tracker provides the foundation you can build on. The complete source code, comprehensive documentation, and active community support make it easy to get started and customize for your specific needs.

This is open-source software at its best—mature, reliable, and continuously evolving to meet real-world needs. Join the millions of users who have trusted GPS Tracker for their location tracking needs, and become part of a community that believes great software should be free for everyone.

I just wanted to let people know what’s going on with GpsTracker. It’s been a couple of years now since I’ve retired from software development. I spend most of time working on my guitar and I’m building a bathroom right now. I just updated the Android client to the latest software so I know that’s working properly. That is still the most popular client.

One thing I would like to mention is that Google is now requiring an API key to use Google Maps. So if things aren’t working, that’s a good place to look first.

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/get-api-key

I am still answering questions here on websmithing. Just create an account and ask on the appropriate page.

One last thing I’d like to say. I would like to update the GpsTracker iphone app. I no longer have an account with Apple and don’t want to spend the $100 that it requires. If you are an ios developer and would like to assist me in updating that, I would greatly appreciate it. If you would like to do the work for free, then I would include your name in the Change Log and you can use it as a reference for future employers. If you would prefer to be paid, I’m willing to pay $50 dollars but then I will just do the update without mentioning who the developer was. I think that sounds pretty fair.

Good luck in using GpsTracker and give me a yell if you need any help.

GpsTracker has now been downloaded over 2 million times on SourceForge. It’s also very popular on Github. I’ve been working on GpsTracker for about 10 years. I’m doing much less software work right now for several reasons. The first is I’ve been writing software for 20 years and I’m now 55 and writing software just isn’t as fun as it used to be and I’m no longer interested in dealing with all the stress.

So I decided it was time for a change. The first thing I did was to sell my house near Seattle, give away all my possessions (except for my stratocaster and tools) and move to France. I’m living in the mountains in a small chalet near Lac Leman where it is very quiet, very peaceful and very beautiful. Three things that I really need and want in my life right now. Also, I have decided to change careers. For the fifth time. So now I am writing my first book which is a work of fiction. I’ve been doing research for the past seven months in preparation for the book. This is definitely one of the riskier things I’ve done but life is too short to sit on the sidelines and in no way am I’m going to retire and watch the world go by. I don’t even know what “retirement” means to be honest. It’s just not in my DNA to sit around and look for amusing ways to fill my time until I die. People in my family tend to live a very long time, many close to 100. So as far as I’m concerned, I’ve just reached the halfway point in my life and I’m just getting warmed up.

Another reason why I’m winding down writing software and in particular, more software for GpsTracker is that it has not been as financially successful as I would have liked. I get approximately 200 to 300 dollars a month from Google Adsense which is nice. In the past 10 years, I’ve gotten about 400 dollars in donations. Nothing in GpsTracker is really that complicated (except for the WordPress plugin). When I first wrote GpsTracker, my goal was to write something that ran on several platforms as a learning tool for me. At first it was a simple PHP server running MySQL on the backend and a java ME client. This was before iPhone and Android came out. I, of course, added those clients as well as Windows Phone. And I wrote a complementary .NET server. Next I created a WordPress plugin which I consider to be the best piece of software I ever wrote.

The last piece of software I created for GpsTracker was a TK103 server and client. Have you ever seen those GPS trackers that you can just plug into the OBD (On Board Diagnostics) port in your car? Well, you can buy them on amazon and then you can pay some company about 20 to 50 dollars a month so that you can track your car. There are lots of companies that will do that for you. Well, I wanted to know how they did it so I ended up writing my own PHP socket server and client and integrating it with my WordPress plugin and there I was, tracking cars for free. I will admit that was a fun project. It was something I always wondered about.

I had a fellow developer, Brent Fraser, join me and he expanded the back end by creating SQLite and PostgreSQL databases for GpsTracker. The whole point of all this was to create a very flexible starting point for other developers so that they could take GpsTracker and work on the platforms that best suited their needs. I think we’ve done a very good job in achieving that goal.

I like helping people and I will continue to do so as time and desire permits. I’m going to create a forum here on websmithing to better organize questions and responses. At this point in time, I will not be taking on any new clients. I wish you luck and success with your software endeavors.

So anyway, that’s where I’m at and that’s where GpsTracker is at. Did I just end that sentence with a preposition? I really need to work on my writing skills…

The next version of Gps Tracker comes with a WordPress plugin and also an Android client. The plugin is available on the WordPress plugin website and you can install it directly from your WordPress install. The source code for the plugin is also now available in the Gps Tracker Github repo and Sourceforge download. The software is dual licensed. It uses MIT and GPLv2 licenses. The reason for the two licenses is because WordPress is GPLv2 licensed and recommends that their plugins be licensed that way also. The reason why I use MIT is because Gps Tracker has been licensed that way since the beginning and I wanted to maintain the same licensing for any new software added to Gps Tracker.

You can see the plugin working here on the websmithing website. This plugin took me about a year to write. I first had to learn how to create WordPress plugins and then how to fit Gps Tracker around their API and it was not easy. I’m using WordPress in a non-standard way. I have created a REST API that returns GeoJson. I am not using WP-API, which is WordPress’s up and coming REST API. The reason for this is because I needed a custom type (the GeoJson) and I did not want to litter the WordPress table that stores posts, users, comments etc with a custom location type. Gps Tracker generates and deletes lots of rows in a table. I wanted to have this table separate from the WordPress system tables. It just made more sense this way so I have created custom endpoints within the Gps Tracker plugin.

I searched long and hard on trying to find out how to create a REST API with WordPress. I found a couple of plugins that do that but they were to complicated for me to figure out and certainly seemed to complicated for my needs so I spent quite some time becoming one with WordPress plugin developer documentation… And one year later, voilà. I will post a tutorial on how I created the plugin because I think it will help a lot of people. Give it a test and please feel free to ask any questions about it on this post.

I’m happy to report that the latest version of GpsTracker now supports SQLite and PostgreSQL. This is all due to Brent Fraser, a fellow developer. One of Brent’s areas of expertise is working with databases and he has put quite a lot of work into porting GpsTracker over to these two databases.

Brent has also become the second developer on GpsTracker and we are going to be exploring some new technologies to enhance GpsTracker and make it more valuable to companies. What we want to look at next is using an off the shelf gps device like this that can be permanently installed in a car or truck. We are looking for something that is cheap and reliable and can be easily purchased off of amazon. This will allow small companies to track employees, trucks and other equipment without the unnecessary cost of a cell phone. Buying a SIM and mobile plan will still be required but not having to deal with phones will greatly enhance the usability of GpsTracker for companies.

Once again, I would like to thank Brent for his hard work and welcome him to GpsTracker.