Honestly it's surprising it held on as long as it did — it must have brought some SERIOUS value to someone in the Google world. On June 25, 2027, users will no longer be able to download Google Earth Pro desktop.

History

Good, bad, and ugly: Google Earth Pro Desktop IS the origin point for the KML/KMZ "standard" that has been a source of ire and/or a simple, easy-to-use bit of free Windows software for viewing spatials, depending on the day. It wasn't always free, starting its life as a $399 bit of kit, but since 2015 it's been the free option — despite being only the middling solution among many strong contenders.

Things I Will Not Miss

(And secretly hope will be abandoned by everyone) now that Google Earth is gone:

• insert point on center by default — not the way insert path works, by the way — instead of click to place. Feel free to change, Avenza.
• Bosses and engineers asking: "can you send that to me in KMZ?", leading to:
• Developing a damn KMZ export endpoint in every damn project model.

Things I Will Miss

• Viewsheds are an amazing, but accessible, desktop analysis tool. I've used it for mushroom hunting, real estate hunting, and solar siting (the latter in combination with another lost desktop tool, Google SketchUp).
• I use elevation graphs for path seeking difficulty. Like, three times this month. Rarely do I plan any non-urban trek without visualizing the elevation change over distance plot in Google Earth Desktop. I certainly have no clue where, or if, that tool resides in the current web offering.

So, to summarize: I will miss USING the tool to solve the simple problems it solves amazingly, and I will not miss the non-technical people the software was designed for MISUSING it.

What Comes Next

As I wrote earlier, I'm more surprised it survived this long into the modern era of subscriptions-as-a-service payment model we are growing accustomed to, and assuredly Google wants to tap into for the features in a "new-and-improved" web version and its mobile apps. Maybe that works if all you do is spin the globe and peek at Street View, but there is a surprising amount of recreational, service, and professional workflows that absolutely rely on it and probably have no direct non-technical solution. The good news is the gap is already filling from both the open-source and proprietary sides. Here's the landscape I'm watching.

Open Source

GeoLibre — This is the one I'm most excited about. It's a cloud-native GIS platform by Qiusheng Wu (of leafmap/geemap fame) built with Tauri, React, TypeScript, MapLibre GL JS, DuckDB-WASM, and deck.gl. It runs in the browser, as a standalone desktop app, on mobile, and inside Jupyter notebooks. It supports 3D Tiles (including Google's Photorealistic 3D Tiles), LiDAR, georeferenced video, a plugin marketplace, SQL workspace powered by DuckDB, and Whitebox geoprocessing via a Python sidecar. All data stays local and private. And get this: the repo was created May 27, 2026 and is already at 1,575 stars with 218 forks — that's six weeks of development. MIT licensed. The pace is absurd. I'll be writing more about this one soon.

CesiumJS — The heavyweight. 15,453 stars, Apache 2.0, used everywhere from aerospace to smart cities. It's a JavaScript library for 3D globes and maps, not a desktop app out of the box, but the 3D Tiles spec it created is the closest thing to an open standard for massive 3D geospatial datasets. If you're building a web-based replacement, you're likely using Cesium under the hood. There's also Cesium for Unreal if you need photoreal rendering in a game engine. Oddly, not starred by me and I've never tapped it as a project solution.

KDE Marble — The quiet veteran. A Qt-based virtual globe and world atlas that's been around forever. Cross-platform desktop app (Linux, Windows, macOS). Supports KML, routing, map projections. It won't replace the polished Google Earth experience, but it runs natively, respects the desktop, and requires zero cloud dependencies. Sleeper on the list — reminds me of Celestia.

TerriaJS — Data61/CSIRO's library for building rich geospatial data platforms. 1,344 stars, Apache 2.0, TypeScript. More of a data catalog + 2D/3D viewer framework than a direct Google Earth replacement, but worth knowing about if you assemble multi-source geospatial dashboards for work.

Leafmap — Also by Qiusheng Wu, 3,728 stars, MIT. Python package focused on interactive mapping in Jupyter environments. Not a stand-alone globe viewer, but the tool I reach for when I need to do real analysis on geospatial data from a notebook. It can output to GeoLibre projects.

NASA WorldWind — The original open-source virtual globe. The Java SDK is archived/dormant (last meaningful updates years ago), but the web SDK (WorldWind.js) is available. Good for reference, not a thing I'd bet my workflow on today.

Google Earth Enterprise (GEE) — Google open-sourced GEE Fusion/Server in 2017. It's Apache 2.0, 2,743 stars, but hasn't had substantive updates since January 2023. If you need a private globe server for an organization, it's a viable option, but I wouldn't start a new project on it.

Proprietary

ArcGIS Earth — Esri's free desktop globe viewer. Provides 3D visualization, KML/KMZ support, measurement tools, and connects to ArcGIS services. It's free but proprietary, so you're inside Esri's ecosystem. It works, it's polished, and it runs on Windows. Not the same soul as Google Earth, but closer to the desktop-equivalent experience than most. Most of the Windows users losing Pro desktop will end up here.

Google Earth (Web & Mobile) — What Google wants you to use. The web version at earth.google.com has been improving but is still missing key desktop features: no elevation profiles, no advanced KML editing, no import of large local datasets through a simple file dialog. It works for browsing, not for working.

Mapbox GL JS & Studio — Mapbox's platform is developer-first. Their GL JS library is the basis for many of the open-source alternatives (MapLibre is a fork). Studio is their web-based map design tool. Powerful, but pricing scales with usage, and you're on their infrastructure.

Bentley iTwin — If you're doing infrastructure or BIM-level work, iTwin is the 3D platform. Overkill for trail planning or mushroom hunting, but worth knowing about if your day job is civil engineering or environmental monitoring.

Skywatch / Orbica Earth — Niche commercial offerings. Skywatch focuses on satellite tasking + viewing. Orbica Earth is a New Zealand-based 3D geospatial platform. Worth a look if you need commercial support, but their feature sets are narrower than the incumbents.

The Outlook

Over the next year, users will have to migrate to new solutions and will fragment towards the solutions that meet their varied and diverse use-cases. Nobody has the full Google Earth Pro feature set in one package right now. But GeoLibre is moving so fast that I suspect I could be using it for most of my personal geospatial needs by EOY-2026. It'll be the obvious answer for most of what I actually use Google Earth for: viewsheds, elevation profiles, field data capture with custom forms, and offline-capable desktop access. The plugin marketplace model means the community can fill the gaps faster than any single team could. I'm planning a series of blog posts that cover my development of the geospatial tools I'm replacing Google Earth with over the next year as GeoLibre plugins.

If you need a desktop globe today and can't wait: install ArcGIS Earth (free, proprietary) or KDE Marble (free, open-source, Linux-native). If you're building your own stack: GeoLibre's what I'd bet on right now despite being a nascent project. If you just want to keep using Google Earth Pro after June 2027: download it now and keep the installer — the app itself will keep working; they're just blocking new downloads. But the corps who shirked a real geospatial solution to rely on Google Earth Pro are going to have to find something else that has a support path that doesn't make the IT dept sweat.

The KML/KMZ zombie will live on, unfortunately.

Sources

1. Google Earth Desktop deprecation announcement (Accessed: 2026-07-10)
2. The Verge: Get Google Earth Pro while you still can (Accessed: 2026-07-10)
3. Killed by Google (Accessed: 2026-07-10)
4. GeoLibre — Cloud-native GIS platform (Accessed: 2026-07-10)
5. opengeos/GeoLibre on GitHub (Accessed: 2026-07-10)
6. CesiumJS — 3D Globes & Maps (Accessed: 2026-07-10)
7. KDE Marble — Virtual Globe (Accessed: 2026-07-10)
8. ArcGIS Earth (Accessed: 2026-07-10)

AI Disclaimer AI was used in the following ways: - Software engineering - Source summary and collection - Markdown formatting - Research compilation of alternative geospatial platforms