What3Words Won't Let You Use It Offline – So I Made an Open Replacement

What3Words is proprietary, patent-encumbered, and sues people who try to reimplement it. It won’t even give you the word list — so no offline use.

So I built PlaceWords: a free, open-source, patent-safe system that maps every 5m square on Earth to 3 words.

Apache 2.0 licensed — fork, self-host, embed anywhere

Works completely offline

No lock-in — replace words, add languages, keep compatibility

Patent-safe — not a clone, just better

Powered by the open S2 geometry system. Fully reversible to coordinates. Try it, break it, improve it.

GitHub: https://github.com/GorillaSapiens/placewords