Best GPS navigation app that doesn't require Google Play Services in 2023?

lots of people will comment about organic maps

It’s actually really good. I just wish the maps were as up to date as the big three (Waze, Apple, google). It would be awesome if each city, state was required to publish map data to openstreetmaps. I know my city has everything in arcgis and you can browse it. But they should definitely publish to openstreetmaps.
- Saying Waze and Google in the same phrase is, unfortunately, redundant
+1 for organic maps
Like the kind you fold up?
- Into a swan.

OsmAnd+ the best

That's what I use. Some may get too overwhelmed with the feature set it has, so Organic Maps would be a more basic nav app.

But... OsmAnd+ is far more advanced than Google Maps, and can be customized every which way.

Another bonus: You'll never see ads masquerading as POIs on a map.😀

Any way to get live traffic? I'm not finding anything very useful online
- For live traffic, try Magic Earth. I haven't used it in a while, but it's another alternative to consider. :)
- Not for Route calculation. But you can use the googlemaps interface as an overlay.
  https://hoerli.net/osmand-google-traffic-anzeigen/ It's German, but the pictures should be enough.

I use Magic Earth, it has the best UI IMO.

Google maps actually works ok with Play services Internet access blocked. And it has local downloadable maps now. I prefer Organic Maps on principle and use it when I can, but sometimes resort to Google maps. I've never liked Osmand since I've found it confusing.

Organic Maps serves me well

okay I just tried it. lol. How does it serve you well? It is absolutely useless. seriously.. please explain.
anyone doubting me, go install it and try it out for yourself. You will see how useless it is. You put in a valid address and it says "no results found." It has literally nothing. except it encourages you to download an entire map of an entire huge city for 220 MB. Why? Why is the only option it offers to download a huge data-heavy city and it won't even take me to a simple address?
- Of course you have to download the map ypu wanna use, duh. Plus I live in a third world country and it has everything so far including adresses and it works even for coordinates

I have been using MapFactor Navigator for decades already. It uses OSM for maps (or Tomtom maps, if you want to go commercial), and you can configure every aspect of the navigation; you can completely geek out on it, if you want.

Not affiliated at all, just a happy user.

- GPS became available to the public in the 80's. I'd say that counts as decades old
- GPS tech is definitely decades old, I could dig out a couple of handheld units I have in a box that would qualify for that distinction (circa 2000) and those were a few models into what was available to consumers let alone unis and governments.
  Using that specific application for decades is more of a stretch, but technically possible if you count all Mapfactor navigation and they first used it on a PC (released 2002 apparently). Even on mobile devices it's not that far off qualifying as possible though (released 2007 on Windows CE so 16 years).

YMMV honestly. It depends on where you live. If your city is mapped out well, OsmAnd+ will work for you. For me, unfortunately Google Maps still works far far better than anything else I've tried :(

Best one I've found with real time traffic is HereWeGo and it's just... OK. If anyone knows of a better one for a privacy respecting traffic maps please let me know.

It's been a while since I've had this one. Going to try it out again. Thanks
This one... Doesn't seem so bad, privacy wise. It can be also used offline, afaik.
It used to be better. They rewrote it a while back and made it not as good.

Waze for me unfortunately owned by Google tho. Doesn't require play services

MagicEarth is decent, I've not had any luck with osmand or organic maps.