What Dezfil is

Dezfil is a web app for maps made from your own data: import it, query it with SQL, style it on a map and share the map as a link.

You run it yourself, as one container on your computer or a server.

Home

Home's Continue and Start: the map Health access in Rwanda under Continue, its picture, layers and Draft, and the Start tiles New map, Add data, New workflow and Open SQL

Home brings back your last map or workflow under Continue, and starts new work with New map, Add data, New workflow and Open SQL. Your first map begins here.

Maps

The Maps screen in Grid view: the filters, the New map tile and the cards of three maps, each with a picture of the map, its number of layers and Draft

Maps shows every map you can open, each as a card with its picture. Search them, show only Published or Drafts, or click New map.

The map builder

The map builder with the map of Your first map: the Layers tab with its one layer, and 48 cities on a world map, colored by population, with the legend of five population classes

In the builder you add datasets or SQL queries as layers and style each one, then set the Basemap, Widgets and Legend. Your first map builds this map step by step. See Build a map and Widgets and tools.

Publish gives the map a link that anyone can open without an account, and Embed gives the code that puts it in a web page. See Share and publish.

Data

The Data page: the search box, the source chips Files and Templates with their counts, and the cards of the datasets, with a workflow's outputs folded into one card

Data holds your datasets, from files such as CSV, GeoJSON or Shapefiles, a link, Overture Maps, OpenStreetMap or PostGIS. Open one to see its rows and its map. See Import data.

SQL

The SQL workspace: Sources on the left, a query in the editor that lists the six strongest earthquakes with their place, magnitude, depth and geometry, and its six rows as a table, with the Map tab beside Table

The SQL workspace queries your datasets in DuckDB’s SQL, spatial functions included, and shows the result as a Table or on a Map.

Keep a result with Save as dataset, Download or Add as map layer. See Query with SQL.

Workflows

The workflow canvas of a copy of Health access in Rwanda: three datasets feeding six nodes, from Centroid to a last SQL step, in five tinted note sections from About and Input data to Result, the Sources and Tools pane on the left and Run all at the top right

A workflow chains tools, such as Filter rows and Spatial join, and each node writes a new dataset. Click Run all to repeat the chain when the data changes. See Workflows.

The colored boxes are notes, for comments beside the nodes. Their text shows when you zoom in.

Templates

The Templates page: the search box, the tag chips with their counts, and the cards of the three templates that come with Dezfil

Templates holds finished maps and workflow examples on open data. Open one to see how it is made, or Make a copy of your own. See Templates.

Also in the app

• Projects: a project groups maps, workflows and datasets, and shares them with people as viewers or editors. See Share and publish.
• Connections: your saved PostGIS databases, whose tables you import as datasets. See Import data.
• Assistant: a chat pane on the map, SQL and workflow pages that reads your data and makes changes when you ask. It runs on an Anthropic or OpenAI key set on the server. See The assistant.
• Settings: your account, your API tokens and your look. Admins also set how the instance behaves there. See Your settings and Configuration.

How it runs

• One container: the image holds the web app, the API and the query engine, DuckDB with its spatial extension. It serves on port 3000. Install starts it with Docker, Docker Compose or from source.
• One data folder: everything Dezfil stores lives in one folder, /data in the container. Datasets are GeoParquet files; maps, workflows, accounts and settings sit in one SQLite file. To back up, stop Dezfil and copy the folder. If you set the encryption key DEZFIL_SECRET_KEY yourself, keep it too: see Back up and restore.
• Accounts: the first person to finish setup is the admin, who adds the others under Users. Your maps, datasets and workflows stay private until a project shares them or you publish a map. See Users.
• What leaves the instance: maps load the built-in basemaps from OpenFreeMap, in each viewer’s browser and in the map pictures the server draws, and the server reads the template catalogue from GitHub. Imports, the address finder, travel times and the assistant reach outside only when you use or set them up. See What leaves the instance.
• Scripts and AI agents: every action in the app is a call to the HTTP API, described in the API description. An AI agent connects over MCP at /api/mcp, with a token from Settings › API & MCP. See the API quickstart and Connect an AI agent.
• Licence: Dezfil is released under the Apache License 2.0. Licence and credits names the libraries and map data it uses.

Next steps

• Install: run Dezfil on your computer or a server.
• Your first map: from a CSV file to a shared map in about ten minutes.
• Templates: start from a finished map or workflow example.