Map Control Branches

Note

Bing Maps Web Control SDK retirement

Bing Maps Web Control SDK is deprecated and will be retired. Free (Basic) account customers can continue to use Bing Maps Web Control SDK until June 30th, 2025. Enterprise account customers can continue to use Bing Maps Web Control SDK until June 30th, 2028. To avoid service disruptions, all implementations using Bing Maps Web Control SDK will need to be updated to use Azure Maps Web SDK by the retirement date that applies to your Bing Maps for Enterprise account type. For detailed migration guidance, see Migrate from Bing Maps Web Control SDK and Migrate Bing Maps Enterprise applications to Azure Maps with GitHub Copilot.

Azure Maps is Microsoft's next-generation maps and geospatial services for developers. Azure Maps has many of the same features as Bing Maps for Enterprise, and more. To get started with Azure Maps, create a free Azure subscription and an Azure Maps account. For more information about azure Maps, see Azure Maps Documentation. For migration guidance, see Bing Maps Migration Overview.

There are two branches of the Bing Maps V8 SDK that can be accessed. This provides the option to access new features as soon as they are available, even if those features have not been thoroughly tested or completed.

Branch	Description
release	The main branch of the SDK that is used in most applications. New features have been fully tested and known bugs found while in the experimental branch have been fixed.
experimental	New features are made available as soon as they have been developed. These features are still being tested and may have bugs in them. This branch is recommended for developers who want to try out the latest and greatest features as soon as they are available.

To point your application to a specific branch simply add &branch=[branch_version] to the map script URL. If a branch is not specified, the release branch is automatically loaded. For example, the following URL can be used to load the experimental branch.

<script type='text/javascript' src='http//www.bing.com/api/maps/mapcontrol?callback=GetMap&branch=experimental&key=[YOUR_BING_MAPS_KEY]' async defer></script>

<script>
    function GetMap() {
        //Load the map.
    }
</script>