XYZ Tiles is the classic z/x/y folder structure, PMTiles is a modern format packing all tiles into a single file. PMTiles is easier to deploy, XYZ Tiles is more familiar.
| Criteria | Map Tiles | PMTiles |
|---|---|---|
| Single file | ✗ | ✓ |
| Serverless | ✗ | ✓ |
| Familiarity | ✓ | ✗ |
| CDN compatibility | ✓ | ✓ |
| HTTP Range requests | ✗ | ✓ |
For classic tile servers, nginx, familiar stack.
For S3/R2, serverless, compact storage, GitHub Pages.