Amended 11th March 2009

I’ve had a lot of response to my piece on Routebuddy (not least from Routebuddy and Anquet). More than a few people have raised the issue of price as Anquet allow their software to be downloaded for free and Routebuddy costs about £66 (it is priced in dollars on the website).

Now, there’s nothing in this world for free and so I set about trying to compare a collection of maps. While Routebuddy costs some money their maps are often cheaper than Anquets. Basically, the more maps you buy the closer the differential.

Look at this collection. First we have to buy Routebuddy and download Anquet (£66 and £0 respectively).

Then I buy the Snowdonia National Park map which is £49.95 for RB and £50.00 for Anquet.

Then I buy the Pembrokeshire regional map. £29.99 for RB and £50.00 for Anquet.

Then I buy Cairngorms complete (Anquet) £75 and Caingorms W and E from RB at a combined cost of £59.98.

I could go on. The comparisons become a little difficult because both have cheap maps in their range, for example Anquet discount the NW Scotland map and RB does not.

You should note that these prices of from Anquet’s current ‘SALE’. In more normal times RB maps may be even more competitive.

But you can see from how this is working that the cost gap closed as you buy actual maps.

Of course, we can’t compare the programs and the quality of the maps side-by-side as the Anquet offering is not with us yet. But I suspect this is something you want to look at carefully before you buy. Depending on the maps you want Routebuddy can close the gap quicker than that listed above. But then if you want — say — just Great Britain at 1:50 the Anquet is the better deal.

I’ve been trying to get my head around Routebuddy’s claim to be mixing vector maps with raster maps, something that Anquet doesn’t do. When I’ve succeeded I will report back.