A solo dev's free truck navigation app: POIDZ carved out a spot in an old category using French open data and drivers' Facebook groups

An indie developer in Agde, a small town in southern France, built a free navigation app for truck drivers. It computes routes using the vehicle's real height and weight, has no ads, and requires no sign-up. Three months after launch, it has 15.6k Android installs, ranks around #40 in France's free Maps & Navigation chart, and has the fastest-growing iOS ratings in its niche. The category is old and crowded. It relies on three things competitors can also access: national open data, professional drivers' Facebook groups, and making "free" the whole product. Below: how it took off, where the money question stands, and whether to copy it in another country.

Oct 8:1,564 installs

As of 2026 Oct 8, David Bartolomeu told the local paper Midi Libre that POIDZ had been installed on 1,564 devices that day, with 605 of them used in the last 7 days. He normally builds websites and business software for small local companies. POIDZ is a side project he works on in his spare time. He explains the idea this way: "Professional GPS costs money, and even paying doesn't guarantee it's right. A screen and the road are two different things: the bridge height limit is marked wrong, the no-heavy-trucks road isn't marked, and closed roads don't appear on any map."

Three days later, POIDZ's own TikTok post said "over 10,000 people have installed it." In October 12, the official account posted in "Les Relais-Routiers," a large Facebook group for French truck drivers, saying it had "over 11,000 installs." Later, on its crowdfunding page, it wrote that "thousands of new drivers came in in early October," and map-provider bills for the first ten days alone topped 230 €.

1,564 and 10,000 are only three days apart. Either the first number reflects a single platform or a specific counting method, or installs really did multiply several times over in those days. I couldn't find conclusive evidence of which post sparked the surge.

What it is

It's a truck-specific navigator, also used for buses and motorhomes. Enter the height, width, length, total weight, axle weight, and whether you carry hazardous goods, and it computes a compliant route: avoiding low bridges and weight-restricted sections, accounting for low-emission zones (ZFE) and the Crit'Air emissions sticker on the vehicle. If no compliant route exists, it tells you before you leave.

The other half is driver-to-driver reporting: checkpoints, accidents, low bridges, roadworks, closures, "no heavy vehicles," all reportable in two taps, and later drivers confirm whether they're still there. The map also shows truck parking, the cheapest diesel along the route, and logistics warehouse entrances. It supports CarPlay, and Android Auto is under review.

A category where people have been paying for years

Truck navigation isn't new. TomTom's truck version has over 20 million installs on Google Play, Sygic has over 5 million, and Michelin's Truckfly is a familiar name to French drivers. Most of these charge an annual fee; POIDZ itself lists the price in its social posts as 75–130 € a year (which 10-10 checked on the App Store).

"Free" isn't new either. Eurowag Navigation (formerly RoadLords) is free and has real-time reporting, with 4.33M installs on Play, backed by a fuel-card company. NavXL, a French app launched 2024 years ago, also went free, using ads and in-app purchases to reach the French Top Grossing chart at #10–17, but its iOS rating has stayed flat at about 7 ratings over the last few days.

Add Seebee Truck, which launched in 2026 February with rugby star Sébastien Chabal as its face, and veteran drivers who still carry hundreds of euros' worth of Garmin in-car units, and it's a very crowded field. So the question isn't whether someone else is doing it. It's how a free app built by one person pushes its way in.

Why it took off

Free all the way. No driving feature is locked, there are no ads, and no account is needed. French truck drivers are mostly employees, and their employers don't always reimburse paid navigation, so many make do with Waze or Google Maps. POIDZ's pitch is one line: Google Maps doesn't know your truck is 4 metres tall.

Going deep on open national data. Low-emission zones come from official French data, updated automatically. Local truck bans come from the national traffic-ban database DiaLog, updated weekly. The crowdfunding page says the map includes 55k low bridges and low passages. This data is public. Foreign majors don't bother to wire it country by country, and slower local incumbents move slowly, so one person can end up with the most detailed map.

The founder posts in the groups himself. French truck drivers cluster in dozens of large Facebook groups. The POIDZ official account posts in "Les Relais-Routiers" (10-12), "LES ROUTIERS SONT TOUJOURS AUSSI SYMPAS" (10-18,17 comments), "Les Boulettes De Routiers," and others, with tracking parameters in the links, campagne=facebook-groupe. The posts also invite truck diners and parking lots to "list your place for free," which gives it a reason to keep returning to the groups, and businesses help spread it. Later, organic user recommendations appeared too: 10-24 someone recommended it in a passenger-transport workers' group, saying they'd buy the paid version next month to support the developer.

Fast updates, announced every time. In October, versions went from 1.7.1 to 1.8.3. CarPlay, roadside service points, driving-time tracking, and the fleet plan all launched that month, with a group post for each major release. On 10-30 1.8.2, Android installs rose by +762 that same day (Google Play, 10-30).

"Made by a French person, worth supporting." Midi Libre's headline read "made in Agde," and the group posts said "a POIDZ worth supporting."

App Store France reviews show what drivers care about:

"Finally a good free truck GPS." (5 stars, 11-04)

"The designers respond quickly and even ask for ideas." (5 stars, 10-18)

"I hope it doesn't turn into an expensive subscription overnight like some GPS apps." (4 stars, 10-27)

"I was on a road I know well, and it said the route wasn't compliant, flagging a 2.2-metre height limit, but a semi can clearly pass." (3 stars, 10-14)

That last review points to the category's real risk. A wrong route costs vehicles and lives. One user said it led them into a dead end while driving a tanker, and the tow cost them several thousand euros.

Users aren't only truck drivers, either. Several reviews come from people driving motorhomes.

Where the money comes from: still unclear

POIDZ promises "free driving forever," but every truck route it calculates and every address search costs it money paid to the map provider. More users, bigger bill. It opened a crowdfunding campaign on Ulule specifically to cover that cost; in early November it had raised a small amount (about €20 against a goal of €3,500).

Revenue now comes from two sides. One is Plus, which drivers subscribe to voluntarily, along with vehicle silhouette skins priced around €0.99. The Android in-app price cap went from $32.99 to $45.99 (11-01), which lines up with when subscriptions launched. How many people bought is not visible from outside. The other is the fleet version, POIDZ Flotte: fleet owners push the day's delivery routes to drivers' phones from a back-end dashboard, with the pitch "your drivers have probably already installed it." This side is just getting started.

The pricing page on the official site notes "TVA non applicable, art. 293 B," meaning the operator is a micro-business exempt from VAT, which suggests very low annual revenue (inferred).

Where it stands now

The peak has passed. A third-party estimate of the Android curve: 10-19 cumulative at about 10,074,10-20 with +1,740 on the peak day, then +545, +309, +228, and in early November between 120 and 350 per day. It is a fall back to organic traffic after a wave of group posts. iOS ratings are still climbing (+34 over the last 7 days, versus +0 for NavXL, +2 for Truckfly and +3 for Eurowag in the same store).

Few people know it: one local newspaper article, no discussion on X, 21 TikTok followers with a top video of 1,057 views, and 18 Instagram followers. We have not seen anyone copy it yet either.

If it were you

Verdict: B. The playbook is clear: do the same thing in another country. The biggest problem is money. Every extra user adds a map bill, and paid conversion is unknown; wrong routes also carry liability.

Who it suits: developers who know map and routing APIs and can read open data from a single country on their own, ideally people based in truck-heavy countries like Germany, Spain, Italy or Poland, who speak the local language and can join local driver communities; or people who already have logistics or fleet customers who can buy the fleet version directly.

Who it doesn't suit: anyone hoping to earn from consumer subscriptions (drivers hate "overnight paywalls," as the reviews show); anyone who can't absorb the consequences of a wrong route or doesn't want to answer group messages every day; anyone wanting to build a second one in France (POIDZ already holds that ground, and its founder says he plans to expand across Europe).

How to build it: pick one country and wire in its official low-emission zone, truck bans and height-restriction data. This is where you can go deeper than TomTom or Sygic's localization (Germany has environmental zones and local truck bans, but LKW.APP and similar paid products already exist there, so look closely first). Use an off-the-shelf truck routing API, work out the cost per route before launch, and set a monthly cap per user. Keep driving features free, with no ads and no sign-up, and charge the fleet version: per vehicle per month, with dispatch and tracking built in.

How to get users: no paid acquisition. Post in truck drivers' Facebook and WhatsApp groups in that country as the founder, and reply to every comment. Use "free registration for truck restaurants and parking lots" as a reason to post repeatedly. Post once per major release. Write one article for a local newspaper. Use full local keywords in the store title (POIDZ's title is literally "GPS camion poids lourd").

When to move: before spring 2027. POIDZ says it will "open up to Europe"; once it enters your country, you go from first mover to follower.

What would show you misread it: ① POIDZ launches German, Spanish and Italian within 3 months and reaches the top 100 of the free charts in those countries; ② it starts locking features or charging subscriptions because map costs are unsustainable, which would mean the "free + fleet pays" model doesn't add up; ③ its Android installs are still stuck around 20,000-plus by January 2027 and no fleet customers are reported, which would mean the French wave was a one-off burst from group posts.

In one line: in an old category where everyone charges, a solo developer can break in with deep local detail built from public data, distributed through the professional drivers' groups. Whether it survives depends on whether fleet customers can afford the map bill.