A PostGIS vector tile pipeline for MBTiles generation + incremental updates + HTTP serving + storage publish.
PostGIS ──┬── Tippecanoe ──┐
├── GDAL ────────┤── MBTiles ──┬── Built-in HTTP server
└── Native Rust ─┘ ├── Local copy
├── S3 upload
LISTEN/NOTIFY ── Debounce ── MVT encode ─├── Mapbox Studio
├── Custom command
├── Webhooks (HTTP POST)
└── SSE (Server-Sent Events)
Full generation exports PostGIS layers through one of three backends (Tippecanoe, GDAL, or native Rust) to produce MBTiles. Incremental updates listen for PostgreSQL notifications, debounce and deduplicate affected tiles, re-encode them as MVT protobuf, and write them into the existing MBTiles file. The built-in HTTP server serves tiles directly from MBTiles with ETag caching and TileJSON metadata.
| Tool | Approach | How tilefeed differs |
|---|---|---|
| pg_tileserv | Serves tiles on-the-fly from PostGIS, no caching or pre-generation. | tilefeed pre-generates tiles into MBTiles for predictable latency and CDN-friendly serving. |
| Martin | Full-featured tile server with many backends, but more complex to deploy. | tilefeed is a focused pipeline that generates, serves, and incrementally updates MBTiles. |
| t-rex | Similar pre-generation approach but tightly coupled to its own built-in HTTP server. | tilefeed decouples generation from serving — use the built-in server or bring your own. |
| Tippecanoe cron | Periodic full re-runs via cron or CI. Misses real-time updates and wastes work. | tilefeed adds incremental updates via PostgreSQL LISTEN/NOTIFY, regenerating only affected tiles. |
- Cross-platform: Linux, macOS, and Windows
- Three generation backends: Tippecanoe, GDAL (ogr2ogr), and native Rust MVT encoder
- Multiple sources: separate MBTiles outputs with independent layers and zoom ranges
- Incremental tile regeneration using PostgreSQL LISTEN/NOTIFY with debounced batching
- Built-in HTTP tile server with ETag caching, CORS, and TileJSON 3.0.0
- Derived geometry layers: auto-generated label points and boundary lines from polygons
- Geometry simplification (Douglas-Peucker) with per-zoom scaling
- Per-zoom property filtering to reduce tile sizes at low zooms
- Storage backends: local copy, S3, Mapbox Studio, custom command
- Webhook notifications with HMAC-SHA256 signing and configurable cooldown
- Server-Sent Events (
GET /events) for live tile refresh in frontends - CLI tools:
inspect,validate,difffor MBTiles diagnostics - Docker support with multi-stage build
- Auto-reconnect on PostgreSQL connection loss with exponential backoff
- WAL mode for concurrent MBTiles reads during writes
- PostgreSQL with PostGIS extension
- Tippecanoe — only if using
generation_backend = "tippecanoe"(default) - GDAL — only if using
generation_backend = "gdal" - Neither needed for
generation_backend = "native"
brew tap muimsd/tilefeed
brew install tilefeedscoop bucket add tilefeed https://github.com/muimsd/tilefeed
scoop install tilefeedcurl -LO https://github.com/muimsd/tilefeed/releases/latest/download/tilefeed_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i tilefeed_amd64.debcurl -LO https://github.com/muimsd/tilefeed/releases/latest/download/tilefeed-x86_64.rpm
sudo rpm -i tilefeed-x86_64.rpmcargo install tilefeeddocker build -t tilefeed .
docker run -v ./config.toml:/data/config.toml tilefeed serveRequires Rust 1.70+ and protoc (protobuf compiler).
# Install protoc
# Linux: sudo apt-get install -y protobuf-compiler
# macOS: brew install protobuf
# Windows: choco install protoc
git clone https://github.com/muimsd/tilefeed.git
cd tilefeed
cargo build --release
# Binary: target/release/tilefeedDownload from GitHub Releases:
| Platform | Binary |
|---|---|
| Linux x86_64 | tilefeed-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu |
| Linux ARM64 | tilefeed-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu |
| macOS Apple Silicon | tilefeed-aarch64-apple-darwin |
| macOS Intel | tilefeed-x86_64-apple-darwin |
| Windows x86_64 | tilefeed-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc |
tilefeed generate # full tile generation from PostGIS
tilefeed watch # watch LISTEN/NOTIFY for incremental updates
tilefeed run # generate then watch
tilefeed serve # generate, start HTTP server, and watch
tilefeed inspect <file> # inspect MBTiles metadata and statistics
tilefeed validate # validate config against the database
tilefeed diff <a> <b> # compare two MBTiles files
tilefeed -c other.toml serve # use alternate config fileIf running from source: cargo run --release -- serve
createdb geodata
psql -d geodata -c "CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS postgis"
psql -d geodata < sql/setup_notify.sqlAttach the trigger to each source table:
CREATE TRIGGER tile_update_trigger
AFTER INSERT OR UPDATE OR DELETE ON your_table
FOR EACH ROW
EXECUTE FUNCTION notify_tile_update('your_layer_name');The trigger layer name must match a [[sources.layers]].name in config.
[database]
host = "localhost"
port = 5432
user = "postgres"
password = "postgres"
dbname = "geodata"
[serve]
host = "0.0.0.0"
port = 3000
# [webhook]
# urls = ["https://example.com/hooks/tilefeed"]
# secret = "my-signing-secret"
# cooldown_secs = 300
[[sources]]
name = "basemap"
mbtiles_path = "./basemap.mbtiles"
min_zoom = 0
max_zoom = 14
# generation_backend = "native" # no external tools needed
[[sources.layers]]
name = "buildings"
table = "buildings"
geometry_column = "geom"
id_column = "id"
srid = 4326
properties = ["name", "type", "height"]
simplify_tolerance = 0.00001
generate_label_points = true
[[sources.layers.property_rules]]
below_zoom = 8
exclude = ["height"]See full configuration reference for all options.
# Full rebuild + serve + watch
tilefeed serve
# Or step by step:
tilefeed generate # build MBTiles
tilefeed watch # incremental updates only| Doc | Description |
|---|---|
| Configuration Reference | All config fields, sections, and generation backends |
| Tippecanoe Settings | Fine-tuning Tippecanoe tile generation |
| Tile Serving | Built-in HTTP server, SSE, webhooks, and external alternatives |
| Derived Layers | Auto-generated label points and boundary lines |
| OGR_FDW Integration | Using external data sources via PostgreSQL FDW |
- PostgreSQL trigger emits
pg_notify('tile_update', ...) - tilefeed debounces notifications into a batch
- Events are routed to the correct source based on layer name
- Affected tiles are derived from new/old feature bounds
- Tiles are regenerated and written into the source's MBTiles
- MBTiles artifact is published if
publish_on_update = true - Webhook and SSE consumers are notified with affected zooms, tile counts, and
max_zoomfor overzoom awareness
MIT