← Back to MapLibre Native roadmap
We already have dedicated backends for Vulkan, Metal, and OpenGL, but the advantage of adding a WebGPU backend to the list is portability. MapLibre Native can already run in the browser as WebAssembly by compiling the OpenGL backend to WebGL1/2, but that approach is heavy. A WebGPU backend promises significantly better performance, especially for modern browsers on both desktop and mobile.
WebGPU also simplifies cross-platform development stacks such as Compose Multiplatform and Flutter by offering a single rendering backend that can be used across desktop, mobile, and web targets. The goal of this roadmap item is to add a WebGPU backend that can serve as a webgpu web target, which the three existing backends won’t be able to cover.
If you are interested in contributing to this effort, please reach out on Slack (#maplibre-native) or open a discussion in the MapLibre Native repository.
Our WebGPU backend is released with support for both wgpu and Dawn.
Released: October 2025