How to Start Web Mapping?

If you want to go open source, you could start with this Introduction to Geoserver from last year's FOSS4G: http://workshops.opengeo.org/geoserver-intro/

Tools involved are usually Geoserver, PostGIS and OpenLayers.

Start up costs is your work time plus hosting.

It's hard to estimate time to deployment without knowing your use cases.

Update:

If you are used to QGIS but don't know about webmapping yet your fastest way to success will be QGIS Cloud: You just prepare the project locally and then publish it to the web where you will find it in a ready-made viewer. They have free accounts up to a certain data size. So you don't need your own server if that's an issue for you.

Google Fusion Tables is looking promising with mapping and spatial queries

pros:easy to set up

cons: all your data is on google servers (good? or bad?)

http://sites.google.com/site/fusiontablestalks/stories

Note: Lots of Media/News Companies are using it - Example Guardian UK Newspaper http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/interactive/2011/mar/07/carbon-emissions-public-buildings-map

There is a neat Fusion Wizard now to get you set up faster http://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/fusiontables/fusiontableslayer_builder.html

Examples: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-us-congress-census-map,0,4500533.htmlstory

One of the best: http://tinyurl.com/England-Deprivation-Mapped

I also just attended a conference where they presented the OpenGeo Suite, which is a stack of OpenLayers, GeoServer, GeoExt & PostGIS. They offer both the "Enterprise Edition" (paid for version with support) or the "Community Edition" (free) versions.

Another package that was demonstrated at the conference was GeoMoose, which is a stack of MapServer and OpenLayers.

You might consider downloading the OSGEO Live DVD, which you can run in a virtual machine environment in case you don't want to install a bunch of stuff on your machine while testing it out. It comes pre-packaged with a bunch of different open source GIS software packages, including web mapping tools.

It looks like you have gotten the Open Source answers in the question above. If your company has the budget, ESRI can be a very good option. To clarify, the webmapping APIs in and of themselves are free to use, however the backend ArcGIS Server and SDE will cost you money. Additioanlly, desktop software will be needed to create map services to be used in the web mapping application. If you already have access to these resources or can purchase them, I would defintely recommend looking into ESRI solutions.

One benefit here is that you can code in a variety of languages. There are ESRI specific APIs for Flex and Silverlight:

Flex: http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapi/flex/index.html Silverlight: http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapi/silverlight/index.html

Currently it seems as if the trend in web programming is moving away from solutions that require plugins and are vendor specific (above), and towards more open source and standards based frameworks. ESRI has this covered with the Javascript API:

Javascript: http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapi/javascript/arcgis/

If you take a look at these API websites the documentation is very good. Additionally, forums are available for community help on specific problems. Tech support through ESRI is also very good. So it comes down to price and resources, if you already have these applications or have the budget this is an excellent path, if not the above open source solutions are worth looking into.

If you want to simply prototype something for a viability study to show your boss, which is what I had to do a year or so ago, then for the backend I'd recommend Geoserver because of its user-friendly web interface, backed by some simple shapefiles. For the frontend, OpenLayers is a fantastic choice with lots of samples on the website. I'm not a web-programmer by any means, but I found copying/pasting/tweaking the javascript samples a breeze. I put all this in a VirtualBox VM to keep it all in one place and not break my regular dev environment, using the packages from UbuntuGIS repository.

For production, there's a whole slew of stuff out there that depends on your use-case. For me, I eventually went with Mapserver because it's not as bloated as Geoserver, running as a fast-cgi process on a lighttpd web-server. We needed WFS-T (which Geoserver supports out of the box), but Mapserver doesn't, so we used tinyows. We're also serve coverages (WCS), which Mapserver supports, and we're looking at integrating Rasdaman for its WCS-T support. This is all backed by a PostGIS database.

I'd recommend breaking your application down into back-, middle-, and front-ends, and reading the pros and cons of each piece of software. There may only be a few solutions for each layer, but that increases combinatorially.

I believe ESRI make products capable of doing all this, but this will cost. If your time is at a premium, then the commercial route may be the way to go, but the open-source route is heading in some very exciting directions and I suspect will eventually outstrip anything ESRI could come up with. But then I am a biased FOSS fanboi :)

Have you checked out MangoMap www.mangomap.com ? You should be able to create the map that you want with the available tools. It's hosted and free, so very little time and effort is required to deploy.

Penn State has an Open Web Mapping class. It should be enough to teach you how web mapping works, and also the technologies involved. Most, if not all, of the tools used in the class are free so you cost shouldn't be a problem. Here's the TOC:

Lesson 0: Orientation

Lesson 1: Introduction to Open Web Mapping

Lesson 2: Web Map Servers (WMS)

Lesson 3: Web Feature Servers (WFS)

Lesson 4: Extensible Markup Language (XML)

Lesson 5: Advanced Web Map Servers

Lesson 6: Geographic Markup Language (GML)

Lesson 7: WFS Revisited

Lesson 8: Building a Web Mapping Application

Lesson 9: Building a Thin Custom Web Mapping Client

Have fun :)

There are lots of places to start when developing a web map.

If you have experience as a web developer, you should start by investigating the various services available to you that allow you to publish a map on the web. There are other questions answered here on this site that will give you valuable insight regarding the differences between the platforms available.

If you're starting fresh and don't want to commit to a particular platform, then address your business requirements. How are you going to draw your data on the map? How will the data be updated? Who is going to use this site? What will they do with it? Making these decisions early will help you assemble the pieces, or make choices that will support expansion towards a goal.

As for cost... I prefer to borrow a modern proverb: "Good, fast, cheap. Pick two." It's formally defined as the Project Management Triangle, which describes the balance between cost, scheduling, and scope to bring quality.

For the tools involved, check out the "Web mapping" section (right menu) at http://www.osgeo.org/ - several of the products offer the requested features.

If you are a Java programmer, have a look at Geomajas.

There is a maven archetype which allows you to get started in minutes (see here). You can then add extra layers etc.

There are so many options out there and many great answers already. Two of my favorite choices that haven't already been listed here are CartoDB and MapBox. Both of these provide web based hosting and visualization of data and some very fancy tools with prices starting at FREE.

You'll benefit from having desktop software to get your data setup. ArcMap and Quantum GIS are both great choices for the desktop part.

I'd say the strength of MapBox is making beautiful web maps with really great, easy to use templates and ready to go user interface elements. MapBox requires a desktop program called TileMill (also free) which makes use of a styling interface very similar to CSS.

The strength of CartoDB is that it exposes its PostGIS roots through an SQL API.

Both of these can be used on their own or in combination with other javascript mapping libraries (e.g. Leaflet, Google Maps, OpenLayers).

No matter which platforms you decide to start using to get into web mapping, you will most certainly benefit from learning some javascript. Codecademy is a great place to start (also FREE!!).

You might find this question useful for choosing between Javascript mapping libraries.