Foursquare vs. Swarm: The Rise, Fall, and Split of the Original Social Map

The Check-In Era: When Foursquare Was on Top

In the early 2010s, Foursquare was the ultimate social map. Checking in at a bar, restaurant, or concert wasn’t just about marking your location—it was a game. You could earn badges, become the "mayor" of your favorite spot, and see where your friends were hanging out in real time.

Foursquare was fun, competitive, and actually useful. People used it to discover new places, coordinate meetups, and subtly flex their social lives. But as location-based apps evolved, Foursquare made a bold move: it split itself into two separate apps—Foursquare for discovery and Swarm for check-ins.

Why Foursquare Split Into Two Apps

By 2014, Foursquare faced a crossroads. It was growing, but not fast enough. Facebook had rolled out location features, Snapchat was getting into the game, and Yelp dominated business discovery.

Foursquare’s solution? Divide and conquer.

• Foursquare became a personalized discovery app, similar to Yelp or Google Maps. It used data from past check-ins to recommend new places.

• Swarm kept the check-in feature, turning it into a more focused social app for tracking your real-world movements.

The idea was that users would still check in with Swarm, feeding data into Foursquare’s recommendation engine. But the problem? Most people didn’t want two separate apps.

Foursquare Became Smarter, But Less Social

After the split, Foursquare doubled down on its AI-powered recommendations. It built a massive location database, using check-in data to suggest places users might love. It became a powerful tool for finding restaurants, bars, and coffee shops, often with better recommendations than Yelp.

But the magic of seeing where friends were? Gone. Without the social aspect, Foursquare felt more like an intelligent search engine than a social map.

Swarm Kept the Fun, But Lost the Users

Swarm was supposed to keep check-ins alive. It gamified real-world movements with leaderboards, throwback memories, and mayorships. But without Foursquare’s discovery features, Swarm felt niche—only die-hard Foursquare fans stuck around.

Most casual users simply moved on. Snapchat’s Snap Map made real-time friend tracking more engaging, and Instagram and TikTok took over local discovery. Swarm was fun, but it lacked a viral hook to attract new users.

Was Splitting the Apps a Mistake?

At the time, Foursquare believed splitting the apps would help both sides grow independently. Instead, it led to declining user engagement.

• Foursquare became great for recommendations but lost its social stickiness.

• Swarm kept the game mechanics but lost most of its audience.

• Newer social map apps, like Snap Map and Zenly, took over the space Foursquare once owned.

Looking back, keeping Foursquare as a single app—with both discovery and check-ins—might have been the better move.

The Legacy of Foursquare and Swarm Today

Foursquare is still around, but not as a consumer app—it’s now a location data company, powering businesses like Uber, Apple Maps, and TikTok. Swarm still exists, but with a much smaller user base.

The lesson? Social maps need to evolve without losing their core appeal. While Foursquare focused on data, apps like Snap Map, Zenly (before it was shut down), and Life360 built better ways for people to see friends in real life.

The world still needs a great real-world social app—one that combines the best of Foursquare’s discovery and Swarm’s social check-ins. The question is: who will build it?