Dawarich

What is Dawarich?

Dawarich is a self-hosted web application that records and visualizes your location history — a private, open source replacement for Google Timeline. Your phone sends GPS points to your own server, where Dawarich plots them on an interactive map, detects trips and visits, and builds travel statistics. The data lives on your infrastructure, not a company’s.

What is Dawarich best for?

People who want a permanent, private record of everywhere they’ve been — without Google keeping (and trimming) it. It fits self-hosters who already run a home server, privacy-minded travelers who want a searchable lifelog, and anyone frustrated that Google removed browser access to Timeline and now limits how long history is retained.

What can Dawarich do?

• Plot your full location history on an interactive map with heatmap, points, lines, and fog-of-war layers
• Collect points from OwnTracks, Overland, GPSLogger, PhoneTrack, Home Assistant, and its own iOS/Android apps
• Import existing history from Google Maps Timeline (Takeout), OwnTracks, Strava, and GPX/GeoJSON files
• Detect trips and visits automatically and show stats — countries and cities visited, distance travelled, time spent
• Overlay geotagged photos from Immich or Photoprism onto your map
• Share live location between family members with consent-based visibility
• Export everything in GPX and GeoJSON with one click

Where does Dawarich fall short?

• It’s still maturing. The project is under active development and the maintainer explicitly warns against auto-updates — new versions can ship breaking changes, so upgrades need a manual read of the release notes.
• You have to run the tracking client too. Dawarich only stores and visualizes points; getting them there means setting up a companion app like OwnTracks or the Dawarich mobile app and tuning how often it reports, which trades battery life against accuracy.
• Spatial database dependency. It needs PostgreSQL with the PostGIS extension plus Redis and a Sidekiq worker, so it’s a heavier stack than a single-container app — expect a multi-service Docker Compose setup.

Is Dawarich free?

Yes — self-hosting Dawarich is completely free and includes every feature, so you only pay for the server it runs on. There is also a paid managed Dawarich Cloud for people who don’t want to host: Lite is €59.99/year (12 months of history), Pro is €149.99/year (unlimited history), and Family is €299.99/year for up to five members. The cloud plans buy hosting convenience, not the software.

What does Dawarich replace?

Dawarich is a self-hosted stand-in for Google Timeline and, with its family sharing, for Life360. It does the same record-and-map-my-movements job, but the history is permanent, exportable, and stored on hardware you control.

FAQ

Is Dawarich open source? Yes. It’s licensed under AGPL-3.0, a strong copyleft license, and the full source is on GitHub.

Can I self-host Dawarich for free? Yes — self-hosting is free and unlocks all features; you only pay for your own server. Dawarich Cloud is the optional paid, managed alternative.

Is Dawarich a good Google Timeline alternative? For people who want to own their data, yes — it keeps unlimited history, imports your Google Takeout export, and never shares your movements. It asks more setup than a phone toggle, which is the trade for full control.

What do I need to run Dawarich? A server (or NAS) that can run Docker Compose, with PostgreSQL + PostGIS, Redis, and a Sidekiq background worker, plus a tracking app on your phone to feed it location points.