Zenly is gone.
MapRaiders is here.

Snap Shut Down Zenly. Here's What Really Happened.

Snap acquired Zenly in 2017 for a reported $250 million. For six years, Zenly operated as an independent app — a beautifully designed, friend-centric location sharing experience that tens of millions of people used daily. Then on September 1, 2023, Snap pulled the plug. The official reason: to focus on Snap Maps.

But Snap Maps is not a replacement. It is a feature inside Snapchat — buried behind a swipe gesture, requiring a Snapchat account, limited to Snapchat contacts, and completely devoid of the social warmth that made Zenly special. Snap Maps was never built to replace Zenly. It was built to retain Snapchat users.

Zenly was its own world. It had its own identity, its own design language, its own community. When Snap shut it down, they did not offer a migration path. They gave users two weeks notice and turned off the servers. Millions of friend groups lost their shared map overnight. No export. No replacement. Just a shutdown notice.

MapRaiders is that world rebuilt — with more depth. We kept everything Zenly did well: real-time friends on a shared map, granular privacy controls, Ghost Mode, location-based status. Then we went further. We added territory claiming, location-based audio messages (Echos), events, quests, and clan formation. The social map became a social game world.

How to Migrate from Zenly to MapRaiders

Since Zenly's servers are offline, there's no data to export — but your most important asset, your friends, is still reachable. Here's how to rebuild your Zenly group in MapRaiders:

Why MapRaiders Beats Every Other Zenly Alternative

Most Zenly alternatives are just location trackers. They let you see where your friends are, add a geofence, maybe share a battery status. That's it. They replaced the utility of Zenly but not the feeling of it — the sense that the map was your social world, not just a logistics tool.

MapRaiders is the only Zenly alternative with a living world layer. When you open MapRaiders, you see your friends' locations — but you also see who owns the territory around you, where Echos are hidden, which events are active nearby, and how your clan's empire is expanding. The map is alive in a way no other location app has attempted.

Privacy is genuinely first-class, not an afterthought. Zenly's Ghost Mode was loved because it worked — you could disappear completely with one tap. MapRaiders has the same capability. Full Ghost Mode makes you invisible to everyone. Selective visibility lets you share with specific friends but not others. Neighbourhood mode shares your approximate area without your exact GPS. You control everything.

We are an independent company with no exit agenda. Zenly died because Snap acquired it and then decided it wasn't worth running anymore. MapRaiders is operated by Scafa Investments LLC — a privately held company. We have no corporate parent who can shut us down for strategic reasons. We built MapRaiders to last, not to sell.

Echos are the feature Zenly users will love most. Leave a voice message at a specific GPS coordinate. When your friend walks by that spot, they hear your Echo. It's asynchronous, location-anchored communication — the kind of spontaneous, place-based social interaction that Zenly's community spirit was built on. Drop an Echo at the coffee shop where you met. Leave a joke at the park bench. Build a shared audio layer over your shared world.