Best FiveM Minimap & Postal Map Scripts in 2026 (Free + Paid, Compared)
There’s one piece of UI on your server that every single player stares at for their entire session, and it isn’t your HUD or your inventory. It’s the minimap in the bottom-left corner. Players glance at it while driving, while running from cops, while trying to find a blip they were told to meet at. If your minimap still looks like default GTA Online, you’re leaving the single most-viewed part of your server completely generic.
A minimap setup is usually two things bolted together: the map texture itself (the satellite or stylized art you see behind the roads) and the postal/radar layer (the numbered grid players use to call out locations — “meet me at 2900”). Some scripts handle one, some handle both, and a few let you draw your own zones on top. Getting all three working together is where most server owners get stuck, and it’s why the “just download a YTD” advice you see in Discord so often ends in a broken radar.
I’ve swapped minimaps on a lot of servers, from quick free satellite drops to fully custom hood maps with gang turf drawn zone-by-zone. Below is an honest look at the real options in 2026 — what each one does well, where it falls apart, and who it’s actually for. If you’re brand new to the topic, our guide on how to make a custom minimap covers the fundamentals, and the numbered-grid side of things is broken down in our postal maps explained walkthrough.
oulsen_satmap — The Free HD Satellite Standard
Framework support: Standalone (works on any framework) Cost: Free and open source Link: github.com/Oulsen/oulsen_satmap
If you’ve joined a server in the last two years and thought “oh, the map looks like actual satellite imagery,” there’s a very good chance you were looking at oulsen_satmap. It’s the dominant free HD satellite map, and it ships with its own custom postal layout baked in.
What it does well:
The visual jump over the default game map is enormous. You go from cartoon roads to a clean, high-detail satellite look that instantly makes a server feel more polished. It’s standalone, so it drops onto ESX, QBCore, Qbox, or anything else without caring about your framework. Installation is about as easy as FiveM installs get — add the resource, start it, done. And because it’s the community standard, almost every other map-related script and tutorial assumes you’re running it, so compatibility headaches are rare.
Where it falls short:
It’s a static texture. You get its look — the exact satellite style and the exact postal numbers it ships with — and that’s what your players get. You can’t edit the art, move a postal, or draw a boundary. If your server has a custom MLO district or a reworked area, the satellite tiles won’t know about it. It’s a great skin, but it is a skin, not a tool.
Best for: Any server that wants a big, free visual upgrade with zero design work and is happy to use the look exactly as shipped.
DevBlocky/nearest-postal — The Postal HUD Everyone Uses
Framework support: Standalone Cost: Free and open source Link: github.com/DevBlocky/nearest-postal
Postals only matter if players can actually read the one nearest them. That’s what nearest-postal does — it puts a small HUD element on screen showing the closest postal code to your current position, so instead of squinting at the map, players just read a number off their screen.
What it does well:
It’s the de-facto standard for this exact job, which means it’s stable, lightweight, and well understood. It pairs with a postal map texture (including the postal grid inside oulsen_satmap or a dedicated postal YTD) and reads from a coordinates file, so you can point it at whatever postal set your map uses. The on-screen display is clean and unobtrusive, and it’s genuinely plug-and-play for the common case.
Where it falls short:
It’s a HUD, not a map — it shows you the nearest postal, but it doesn’t draw or style anything on the minimap itself. It’s only as good as the postal coordinate list you feed it, so if your custom map’s postals don’t match the default set, you’re hand-editing a coordinates file to line everything up. That sync step between your map texture and your postal data is exactly where a lot of setups quietly break.
Best for: Basically every server that wants an on-screen nearest-postal readout. Pair it with a matching map and it just works.
ArduousDev/MiniMap — Free Custom Streamed Minimap
Framework support: Standalone Cost: Free and open source Link: github.com/ArduousDev/MiniMap
This one gets misunderstood a lot, so let’s be clear up front: ArduousDev/MiniMap is a static streamed custom minimap YTD, not an editor. It streams a fixed custom minimap into your server to replace the default look.
What it does well:
It’s a clean, free way to run a custom minimap art style without paying for a preset. If you already have (or can find) a minimap YTD you like, this gives you a working, no-cost path to stream it in. Being standalone, it doesn’t tie you to a framework, and it’s a solid reference for understanding how streamed minimap resources are structured under the hood.
Where it falls short:
You are streaming a fixed map. There’s no in-editor, no canvas, no drawing — whatever the YTD contains is what your players see. Changing the look means going back to image-editing tools and rebuilding the texture yourself, which for most server owners means OpenIV or CodeWalker and a lot of trial and error. If you want to actually design something, this isn’t the tool that does the designing.
Best for: Server owners who already have a custom minimap texture in hand and just need a free, no-fuss way to stream it into the server.
Paid Preset Minimaps on Tebex — Buy the Look
Framework support: Standalone (varies slightly by product) Cost: Roughly $8–$15 one-time Link: Various Tebex stores (Kreteo, Frostbyte, HATS / 10dollarstore)
If you want a designed minimap but don’t want to design it yourself, there’s a healthy market of premium preset minimaps on Tebex. Kreteo’s Light and Night variants, Frostbyte’s FST Enhanced Minimap, and the HATS/10dollarstore “Chicago” minimaps are all in the same ballpark — fixed styles, sold cheap, ready to drop in.
What it does well:
You’re paying a small amount for a professional-looking result and skipping all the design labor. These are polished, cohesive styles that look far better than anything a first-timer would produce, and at $8–$15 the price is easy to justify. FST is worth calling out specifically: it adds a tablet UI for overlays and postals, which pushes it past being purely a static skin into something with a bit of interactivity.
Where it falls short:
With the exception of FST’s overlay UI, these are fixed styles. You’re buying a specific look, and if you want your gang zones, your custom districts, or your own postal numbering on it, a preset can’t give you that — it doesn’t know anything about your server’s geography. It’s the same core limitation as the free static options, just with a paid, more polished coat of paint.
Best for: Servers that want a clean, professional preset look immediately and don’t need to draw anything custom onto the map.
fivem-tools.com Minimap Live Editor — Browser Canvas
Framework support: Standalone (you export a resource) Cost: Freemium — free tier is 1 generation/day + 2K exports; Supporter $7.50/mo, regular $15/mo for unlimited + 4K Link: fivem-tools.com Minimap Live Editor
This is the first genuinely editable option on the list. fivem-tools.com runs a browser-based minimap editor: you design your minimap on a canvas in the browser, then download the result as a resource. No image-editing suite required — the editing happens on a web page.
What it does well:
Being able to actually edit rather than just accept a preset is a real step up, and doing it in the browser means no OpenIV or CodeWalker on your end. The free tier is legitimately usable for a one-off — one generation a day and 2K exports is enough to produce a working custom minimap without spending anything. If you outgrow that, the paid tiers unlock unlimited generations and 4K exports, and the Supporter price of $7.50/mo is reasonable for a tool you’re actively iterating with.
Where it falls short:
It’s a browser canvas, which means you’re designing against a flat image, not your live server. You draw, export, load it in-game, see how it actually looks, and then go back to the browser to adjust — a back-and-forth loop rather than seeing changes on the real map as you make them. The free tier’s one-generation-per-day limit also means iteration is slow unless you’re paying monthly, and it’s a recurring cost if you keep the subscription.
Best for: Server owners who want to design a custom minimap themselves, in the browser, and are fine with an export-and-check workflow or a monthly subscription for heavier use.
LMX Minimap Creator — Live In-Game Editor
Framework support: Auto-detects ESX, QBCore, and Qbox (standalone core) Cost: $29.99 one-time Link: LMX Minimap Creator
Full disclosure: this is our script, so read the rest of the list first and weigh this section knowing that. Here’s the honest pitch for where it’s different. LMX Minimap Creator is, as far as we know, the first live in-game minimap editor. Instead of designing against a flat image and exporting, you type /minimap in the actual game world and draw directly on the real map — gang and turf zones, hood boundaries, labels, and postal codes — and you see them on the live map as you place them. Demo video here.
What it does well:
The live in-game part is the whole point. When you draw a turf boundary, you’re seeing it snap onto the real streets in-game, not guessing against a canvas and re-exporting to check — which is exactly the loop that makes designing a hood or gang turf minimap tedious in other tools. It has Oulsen Satmap tile support built in, so you can build your zones on top of the satellite look most servers already run. When you’re done, it exports a drop-in resource with unlimited exports — no per-day cap and no monthly fee, since it’s a one-time $29.99. Like the browser editor, it needs no OpenIV or CodeWalker. It’s standalone with no ox_lib or MySQL dependency, auto-detects whether you’re on ESX, QBCore, or Qbox, and comes with free lifetime updates plus sub-24-hour Discord support. You can read the full feature breakdown on the in-game minimap editor page.
Where it falls short:
If all you want is a clean satellite skin with the default postals, this is more tool than you need — oulsen_satmap is free and does that in five minutes. It’s built for people who want to draw custom zones, hoods, and postals, so if you’re not doing custom geography, you’re paying for capability you won’t touch. And at $29.99 it’s the priciest single option here, even though it’s one-time rather than recurring. It’s a builder, not a preset — the value shows up when you actually design something.
Best for: Serious RP servers building custom territory — hood maps, gang turf, custom postal grids — that want to design live on the real map and pay once instead of subscribing.
The Verdict: Which One Should You Actually Run
There’s no single winner here, because these tools aren’t all trying to do the same job. Here’s how I’d actually decide.
You just want a better-looking map, free: Run oulsen_satmap and pair it with DevBlocky/nearest-postal. This combo is the free backbone of a huge number of servers for a reason — big visual upgrade, working nearest-postal readout, zero cost.
You already have a texture: ArduousDev/MiniMap streams your existing custom YTD in for free without extra tooling.
You want a designed look but won’t design it: A Tebex preset in the $8–$15 range gets you a polished style immediately. Grab FST if you want the tablet overlay/postal UI on top.
You want to design it yourself, cheaply/occasionally: fivem-tools.com’s browser editor lets you build a custom map on the free tier, with paid plans if you iterate a lot.
You want to draw custom zones live and pay once: The LMX Minimap Creator is the one built for in-game zone-drawing with unlimited one-time exports.
Notice the split: the free and preset options are excellent if you want a fixed look, and there is genuinely nothing wrong with wanting a fixed look — most servers don’t need a custom turf editor. The editable tools only pull ahead once you actually need to draw your own geography.
A few things people always ask. Do you need OpenIV? For the static and streamed options you’ll often end up in OpenIV or CodeWalker if you want to change anything; the two editor options (fivem-tools.com and LMX) avoid that entirely. Does the framework matter? For pure minimap texture work, almost never — most of these are standalone. It only matters once postals hook into jobs, dispatch, or gang systems, and if you’re weighing that, our ESX vs QBCore vs Qbox breakdown is worth a read. And can you mix these? Yes — a very common stack is a satellite base, nearest-postal for the readout, and a custom zone layer drawn on top.
Whatever you land on, test it on a staging server first — a broken minimap or mismatched postal grid is the kind of thing every player notices immediately. If you want to price out the free route before spending anything, start with our roundup of free FiveM scripts, and come ask in our Discord if you’re unsure which combination fits your server.
