Traccar Client SDK

July 11, 2026

We have released a new version of the Traccar Client app, and alongside it a brand-new product: the Traccar Client SDK. The two are closely related, so we want to cover both in a single post.

When we rewrote our mobile apps last year, background location tracking was handled by a third-party library. It worked well, but it was only partially open source and required a commercial license for some features. We were never fully comfortable depending on it, so we set out to build our own replacement - and the Traccar Client app now runs entirely on it.

Traccar Client

The latest app is functionally the same as before, but the engine underneath has been completely replaced with our own SDK. This brings several practical benefits:

• Fully open source - Every part of the tracking stack is now open and licensed under Apache 2.0. There are no proprietary components and no licenses to worry about.
• Works without Google Play - The app no longer depends on Google Play Services being present. It runs on devices where those services are missing or removed, such as many Huawei phones and de-Googled Android builds, falling back to the standard system location provider automatically.
• Lighter and more reliable - Because the SDK is purpose-built for our use case, the app is leaner and background tracking behaves more predictably.

As always, the app is free and open source. You can get it from Google Play and the App Store, or learn more on the Traccar Client page.

Traccar Client SDK

The more exciting news is that the tracking engine is available as a standalone product. The Traccar Client SDK is a background location tracking library that anyone can use in their own mobile apps. It collects positions on Android and iOS, stores them locally, and uploads them to a Traccar server - or any other server that accepts the same simple HTTP protocol.

Background tracking is surprisingly hard to get right. The SDK handles the difficult parts for you: keeping the app alive in the background, pausing GPS when the device is stationary to save battery, and retrying uploads when the network is unavailable. This is the exact same code that powers our own app, so it is thoroughly tested in the real world.

It is written once and shared across platforms, and comes in three flavors:

• Native for Android and iOS
• Flutter for cross-platform apps
• React Native for cross-platform apps

The SDK is completely open source under the Apache 2.0 license. The full source code is available on GitHub, and detailed documentation covering installation, configuration, and behavior is on the Traccar Client SDK page.

We hope this makes it much easier for developers to add reliable background tracking to their own projects, and we look forward to seeing what the community builds with it.

Discuss it on the forum.