Compares Pelias / Nominatim / Photon for self-hosting on the GPU
server, with current (2026-04-28) numbers from upstream docs +
GraphHopper's Photon-data downloads:
Photon Europe pre-built dump: 30.6 GB, weekly refresh
Photon Germany pre-built dump: 5.8 GB, weekly refresh
Nominatim Germany import: ~100 GB disk, 8–12 h, 12 GB RAM
Pelias DACH (current): 3 GB RAM, 4 services, JS patch hack
Recommendation: Photon Europe-wide on mana-gpu. Single Java process,
embedded OpenSearch, no PBF import (download a tarball, restart),
weekly auto-updates from GraphHopper, integrates with the wrapper's
existing PhotonProvider via just an env-var change.
Once self-hosted, Photon registers as `privacy: 'local'` — the
sensitive-query block (Hausarzt, Klinikum, …) gets a real local
backend and no longer has to return empty results when Pelias is
down. Public Photon stays in the chain as a `privacy: 'public'`
last-resort fallback.
Migration plan included (~3–4 h total, ~1 h waiting), with
phase-by-phase risk assessment.
Pelias does not return — the 3 GB RAM + multi-container + patched
JS combination has no operational case once we have a self-hosted
Photon that already matches our wrapper's wire format.
