Comparison · updated 16 August 2026
Four apps that all show fuel stations, and they do not know the same things. This page says where each one gets its numbers, what it will not tell you, and when to open which. Sources named, gaps stated — including ours.
The short answer
If you want a route, open the navigation app you already use. All three of them route better than we do, because that is what they are for, and we hand you straight to whichever one you pick.
Open Refuelia when the question is which station rather than how do I get there: when you want a price you can check the source of, when you need a specific fuel grade or an EV connector, or when you want to know how old the information is before you commit to a detour.
Where the fuel prices come from
This is the difference that matters, and it is rarely stated anywhere.
| App | Price source | Precision |
|---|---|---|
| Refuelia | Government open data, published per station. France (data.economie.gouv.fr), Spain (Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica), Italy (MIMIT). United States: national weekly averages from the U.S. EIA. | Per station where a national feed exists. Country-level average in the United States, and the page says so rather than implying otherwise. |
| Google Maps | Aggregated commercial feeds, reported to be built on sources such as OPIS rather than on user submissions. | Reported to be tied to postcode-level geofences rather than to the forecourt itself. Coverage varies by region and by fuel grade. |
| Waze | Prices submitted and corrected by its own drivers. | As good as the last driver who typed it in — excellent on a busy commuter road, thin where nobody drives. |
| Apple Maps | Third-party place data; fuel prices are not a headline feature and availability varies by country. | Not something to plan a fill-up around in most places. |
Every claim about another app above is about how it is documented and reported to work, not a test we ran. Check your own city before trusting any of them, ours included.
What Refuelia does that the others do not
It tells you how old the answer is
Every status carries its timestamp, and a station nobody has checked recently is grey, not green. Most maps have no colour for “we do not know”, so an unknown station looks the same as a confirmed one. A grey pin is less satisfying and more useful: it tells you to keep a second option.
It names the source on the number
A price on Refuelia says which feed published it and when. If we do not have a real price for a station, the space is empty rather than filled with an estimate.
It filters by the thing you actually need
Diesel, the specific petrol grade, LPG, CNG, or an EV connector type — Type 2, CCS, CHAdeMO. A station that sells petrol but not the grade your car takes is not a station that helps you.
No account, no app, no download
It opens in the browser. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, and the saved-stations list lives on your device rather than on our server.
What the others do better
Saying only the flattering half would make this page worthless.
- Routing and live traffic. Google Maps and Waze are far better at getting you there. We do not compete with that; we hand you over.
- Coverage of opening hours and photos. Their place data is commercially maintained. Ours comes from OpenStreetMap, where opening hours are present on roughly half of the stations we counted in Zürich.
- Offline maps. They have them. We do not.
- Reviews. Theirs are years deep.
Which to open, by situation
| You want to… | Open |
|---|---|
| Drive somewhere you already chose | Your navigation app |
| Compare pump prices you can trace to a source | Refuelia, in France, Spain or Italy |
| Find a specific fuel grade or EV connector | Refuelia |
| Know whether anyone has checked a station lately | Refuelia |
| Avoid traffic on the way | Waze or Google Maps |
| Find fuel with no signal | A navigation app with offline maps |
Open the map How we calculate confidence
Frequently asked
Is Refuelia free?
Yes, and there is no account and no app. The site carries advertising, which is what pays for it.
Which countries have per-station prices?
France, Spain and Italy publish them, from each government’s own open data. Refuelia reads those feeds and shows a national figure per fuel from them; it does not yet put an official price on an individual forecourt. The United States feed is a national average at source. Everywhere else shows stations, fuel types and driver reports, and no price rather than a guessed one.
Why is my nearest station grey?
Because nobody has confirmed anything about it recently. Grey means unknown, not closed. One tap on the station page changes it for the next driver.