On April 6, 2026, WebODM officially split from the OpenDroneMap organization. Piero Toffanin — the creator of WebODM and the person who built most of the interface drone operators actually interact with — pulled the project out of the OpenDroneMap nonprofit and established it as an independent project under its own GitHub organization.
If you process drone imagery with WebODM, this affects where you download the software, which Docker images you pull, and where you go for documentation. It does not affect your processing results, your existing projects, or your license. The software is still free. The outputs are still yours.
Here’s what happened, why, and what you need to do about it.
What Happened
Toffanin announced the split on April 6, 2026, coinciding with the WebODM 3.1.4 release. Three days later, version 3.2.0 dropped with the organizational changes baked in — updated URLs, new Docker image namespaces, and policy updates reflecting the independence.
The new home for WebODM: github.com/WebODM. This isn’t just the web interface — Toffanin forked the entire stack. The independent organization now hosts approximately 27 repositories covering WebODM, ODM (the processing engine), NodeODM (the API layer), ClusterODM (the load balancer), CloudODM, PyODM, and the supporting C++ libraries. The full pipeline, under one roof.
OpenDroneMap continues as a separate nonprofit at github.com/OpenDroneMap, led by Stephen Mather — ODM’s original founder and the organization’s Executive Director.
Both projects remain free and open source under the AGPL-3.0 license. No licensing change. No paywall. No bait-and-switch.
Why It Happened
The announcement cited “irreconcilable differences” between Toffanin and Mather. The public record tells a clearer story.
Governance. Toffanin raised concerns on the OpenDroneMap community forum throughout early 2026. In an “Org Transparency Thread,” he flagged that the nonprofit’s board used self-selection for new members — “the current board decides who to elect.” He noted that funded initiatives lacked basic disclosure: who received money, how much, what deliverables, what deadlines. He pointed to an incomplete Form 990 filing with missing pages.
Revenue. Community members noted that WebODM’s paid native installers had generated approximately $1 million over three years for the OpenDroneMap nonprofit, based on 2023 Form 990 filings. WebODM — built and primarily maintained by Toffanin — was the organization’s main revenue source. That creates obvious tension when the creator disagrees with how the organization governs itself.
The timeline. Toffanin stepped down as ODM’s day-to-day maintainer in August 2025. A replacement maintainer, Leonardo Urena-Fuentes, was brought in. The governance concerns went public in early 2026. A board election was scheduled for April 2026 — the same month the split was announced.
The OpenDroneMap board was working on a formal response as of April 9, 2026. No counter-statement had been published at the time of writing.
What Changed for Users
If you’re installing WebODM for the first time
Clone from the new repository:
git clone https://github.com/WebODM/WebODM --config core.autocrlf=input --depth 1
cd WebODM
./webodm.sh start
Docker images now use the webodm/ namespace: webodm/webodm_webapp, webodm/nodeodm, webodm/odm. The old opendronemap/ images still exist but won’t receive updates from Toffanin’s fork.
Documentation: docs.webodm.org. The legacy docs at docs.opendronemap.org still cover the ODM engine but may not reflect WebODM-specific changes going forward.
Native installers for Windows and macOS: available at webodm.org. Toffanin has prioritized closing the version gap — native installers previously lagged behind Docker releases (stuck at v2.8.1 while Docker was at v3.1.3). That gap is now closed with the 3.2.0 release.
If you have an existing WebODM installation
Your current installation works. Nothing breaks. If you want to track the actively developed fork going forward:
git remote set-url origin https://github.com/WebODM/WebODM.git
./webodm.sh update
Or clone fresh from the new URL.
If you use WebODM Lightning
Nothing changes. WebODM Lightning at webodm.net was always operated by Toffanin’s company UAV4GEO, not the OpenDroneMap nonprofit. It continues as before — same service, same pricing, same proprietary LGT processing engine.
If you hit the NodeODM API directly
Docker image names changed. Integrations pointing to opendronemap/nodeodm will continue to pull from the OpenDroneMap org’s image, but new features from Toffanin’s fork will only appear in the webodm/nodeodm image. Update your Docker Compose files or orchestration configs accordingly.
What Didn’t Change
The processing engine. ODM 3.6.0 is the same code in both forks as of the split date. Your orthomosaics, point clouds, DSMs, and 3D models are identical regardless of which organization’s fork you pull.
The license. AGPL-3.0 on everything. Your maps, models, and point clouds are yours. The license only matters if you modify the source code and serve it to others over a network.
Processing parameters. Every setting — feature-quality, pc-quality, mesh-size, SMRF values, --fast-orthophoto, all of them — works exactly the same. No parameters were added, removed, or renamed in the split.
Accuracy. Same algorithms, same libraries (OpenSfM, OpenMVS, PDAL, GRASS GIS), same pipeline. Every published accuracy benchmark still applies — your checkpoint RMSE won’t shift because the GitHub URL did.
What to Watch Going Forward
The codebases are identical today. They will diverge.
Feature development. Toffanin’s independent WebODM README already lists support for multiple processing engines: ODM, MicMac, and the proprietary LGT engine behind WebODM Lightning. Multi-engine support is a post-split development that the OpenDroneMap fork won’t have. Near-term priorities from the WebODM project include NVIDIA RTX 50 Series GPU support on Windows, checkpoint improvements, and expanded documentation.
ODM engine maintenance. The OpenDroneMap nonprofit continues developing the ODM engine under Leonardo Urena-Fuentes, with funded projects including a $32,000 texturing overhaul (Headwaters, replacing MVS-Texturing with OpenMVS integration), ScaleODM for Kubernetes orchestration, and a Drone Tasking Manager. OpenSfM development resumed under Yann Noutary. Whether Toffanin merges these improvements depends on how the two organizations relate going forward.
Community. The WebODM project is building a Discord-based community, distinct from the existing OpenDroneMap Discourse forum at community.opendronemap.org. If you rely on community support, you now have two places to look.
Long-term stability. Forks sometimes drive faster development. Sometimes they just split the contributor pool and confuse everyone. Too early to call. For now, the WebODM fork has the advantage of its creator’s full attention and the faster release cadence he’s promised. The OpenDroneMap nonprofit has funded infrastructure projects and an established community forum.
The Practical Bottom Line
If you’re setting up a new WebODM installation today: use github.com/WebODM/WebODM. It’s the actively maintained fork with the full component stack and faster releases.
If you have an existing installation that works: no urgency to change. Update your remote when convenient.
If you’re evaluating WebODM against commercial alternatives: the split doesn’t change the software’s capabilities, accuracy, or cost. It still processes full orthomosaics, point clouds, DSMs, and 3D textured models at zero cost — no other free tool matches that stack. The organizational change is about governance and development velocity, not about the processing engine.
The software is the same. The outputs are the same. The address changed. Update your bookmarks and carry on.