I raced Waze against Google Maps, and there was a clear winner

Published Aug 2, 2026, 8:30 AM EDT Adam has a degree in Engineering and has a life-long interest in technology. He has been writing for over a decade for various print and online publications, with a focus on consumer tech. He joined How-To Geek in 2024 while working at Pocket-lint. As well as being a long-term fan of Apple products, he also has a strong interest in smart home tech, running a Home Assistant server at home to automate all his smart home devices. He believes that the ideal smart home should work with minimal interaction from the user, with automations running as if by magic rather than requiring you to push buttons on a control panel. You can find more of his work on Muck Rack. There are certain choices we all have to make in this world. Android or iPhone, PlayStation or Xbox, Spotify or Apple Music, Guttenberg or Hanks. One of the most divisive choices is whether you use Waze or Google Maps. I decided to put both apps head-to-head over a series of matching journeys to see which navigation app came out on top. Race 1: From my home to the local grocery store What looks like the fastest route really isn't The premise was simple. Enter the same starting points and destinations into each app and take a look at the routes that were suggested. Each app gives the estimated driving times, so I could see which app should win each race. We all know that navigation apps can get things horribly wrong, so I started with a journey I knew incredibly well: the journey from my house to the nearest grocery store. If either app chose the wrong route, I'd know about it. I was genuinely surprised by the results. Waze took the exact route that I always take, and I'd expected Google Maps to do the same for such a short journey. Google Maps had other ideas. Google Maps predicted a journey time that was a minute longer. However, the route Google Maps opted for included a stretch of "road" that is little more than a dirt track. It's narrow, not properly surfaced, and has a sign explicitly forbidding you from using it other than for access to the houses along the track. Even if you did drive along it, which would be a slow and painful journey, when you reach the end of the track, you'd have to make a tight 170-degree turn, which would be impossible for most cars to pull off in one maneuver. Anyone who followed the route would be really annoyed, as it would take them far longer, they'd be breaking the rules of the road, and they'd probably end up with a car covered in dust. RACE 1 WINNER: WAZE Kissound Double Din Car Stereo with Apple Carplay & Android Auto $85 $100 Save $15 This budget double DIN head unit packs in wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, along with a 7-inch touchscreen and solid connectivity options. It also includes extras like a backup camera, subwoofer output, and steering wheel control support, making it a surprisingly full-featured option for the price. Apple CarPlay Yes Android Auto Yes Race 2: Getting to the parking lot while avoiding a horrific bend A tight turn of almost 180 degrees is one to avoid Credit: Adam Davidson / How-To Geek Once I'd seen how badly Google Maps had done on the first race, I chose the next race to deliberately catch them both out. This was a journey from my house to a nearby parking lot, and the most direct route involved navigating an incredibly tight bend that virtually doubles back on itself. If you've ever tried taking this bend, you'd never want to try it again. Waze opted for a different route that avoided this bend, but Google Maps chose it without hesitation. Once again, if I'd been following the best route according to Google Maps, I'd have ended up getting severely annoyed. RACE 2 WINNER: WAZE Race 3: A dash to the nearest beach There was nothing to choose between them Credit: Adam Davidson / How-To Geek The first two journeys had been short sprints, so I wanted to try a longer journey, but another one that I knew well. I decided to get both apps to navigate to the closest beach to my home, which is more than 80 miles away. This time, both apps chose almost exactly the same route, and it was the route I would have taken. Both apps even indicated the same area of current heavy traffic along the route. The estimated journey time was also very similar, with Waze predicting that the drive would take 2 hours 34 minutes, and Google Maps estimating 2 hours 38 minutes. I could have used either app, and I would have been happy with the route that it gave me. This one was a tie. RACE 3 WINNER: TIE Race 4: The full length of the country The difference in estimated journey time was fairly large Credit: Adam Davidson / How-To Geek For the final race, I gave both apps the longest route I could, from one end of the country to the other. To make sure the distances were exactly the same, I chose the same parking lots for the start and end points. Waze estimated that its route would take 15 hours and 46 minutes. Google Maps estimated that its route would take 15 hours and 2 minutes, nearly three-quarters of an hour faster. Over the course of an 857-mile journey, that does seem like a lot, but after 15 hours in a car, you probably don't want to spend another 44 minutes driving if you don't have to. The routes chosen were very similar, differing in only one section. When I changed Google Maps to the route suggested by Waze, it said that it would take 16 hours and 9 minutes compared to the 15 hours 46 minutes predicted by Waze. Waze didn't suggest the route offered by Google Maps at all. Honestly, this one is hard to judge. I've never driven this route, and so it's difficult to determine just how accurate the estimated travel times are, and there's no way to tell if Google Maps has thrown in some dirt roads or 180-degree bends along the way. Based on the rules of my experiment, however, I have to give this one to Google Maps. RACE 4 WINNER: GOOGLE MAPS Sorry Google, but Waze is the winner There are two things a navigation app needs to do. It needs to get you from one location to another, but it also needs to do so without driving you completely insane. The routes chosen by Google Maps in the first two races really were terrible choices, which makes me very glad that I'm a Waze user through and through.