About Open Waters
Hi there!
I'm Brandon, and I started Open Water Software as a home for various projects related to marine software and data. My hope is that it grows into a community where mariners, developers, and ocean enthusiasts can come together to build better tools for understanding and navigating the sea.
"Open" as in "The Ocean"
The ocean is a commons. We all depend on it, and we are all responsible for preserving it. Centuries of mariners, hydrographers, scientists, and engineers chose to share what they learned about the sea, and we've all benefited.
Open source software works the same way. By freely sharing what we build—and collaborating openly—we create tools that are better, more reliable, and more useful to everyone. Open Water Software is committed to producing open source tools and data.
If you want to learn more or talk about ways to contribute, get in touch.
Cheers!
Brandon Keepers
Founder of Open Water Software, LLC
Is it free?
Yes. Everything on this site is free to use: the tide predictions and the API behind them, the live AIS stream, the chart tiles, and the code for all of it. There are no plans or accounts to set up. The tides API has a per-address limit that keeps it healthy, and the AIS stream has a free personal token that raises yours and never expires. If you are building a product on it and need more, email me and we'll work something out.
The code is MIT unless a project says otherwise, so you can use it commercially. Data is passed on under each source's own terms, and the license page has the details.
How does it compare?
Most marine data comes one of two ways: from a government service that is free but limited to its own waters and its own formats, or from a company that sells access and keeps the engine and the data to itself. Open Waters is a third way. The prediction engine, the harmonic database, the chart pipeline, and the AIS server are all published, so you can run them yourself, check the numbers, and improve them. Where I rely on other people's data, I pass on their terms and their credit rather than relicensing it.
What you will not find here is anything fit for navigation. These are tools for understanding the sea; official charts and tables remain the reference on the water.
Our Projects
Tide Predictions
Accurate tide predictions powered by our Neaps engine, with comprehensive data from thousands of reference and subordinate stations worldwide.
Learn more about tides →Bathymetry
Mapping the seafloor with open data. Seascape combines global open bathymetry into one detailed map, and Crowd Depth makes it easy to share depth soundings from your vessel with crowd-sourced bathymetry programs.
Learn more about bathymetry →Developer API
Access our marine data programmatically through well-documented APIs. Build your own tools and applications using our open data.
View API documentation →Get Involved
We welcome contributions from anyone interested in marine software and data. Whether you're a developer, a mariner with domain knowledge, or someone who loves the ocean, there's a place for you in our community.