The hosted layers you publish provide the building blocks that allow you and others to build maps and apps. Therefore, you need to consider what data to include in your layers, who needs access to the data you publish, and how those users will use the layers.
The following sections explain two main types of hosted layers you create from spatial features, how their storage mechanisms affect how they're used, and how to control who can edit your feature data.
Understand when to publish tile or feature layers
The primary types of hosted layers used in maps are tiles and feature layers. Each provides different functionality and has a different purpose.
Tiles support fast visualization of large datasets. Publish your data as a hosted tile layer if your data is seldom updated and mainly serves to provide visual context to the map. You should also publish a hosted tile layer if you have a large number of complex features to display in a single layer.
When you publish a hosted (raster) tile layer from a hosted feature layer, you can enable pop-ups on the hosted tile layers to allow the users viewing your map to interact with the hosted tile layer. For example, your county boundaries are unlikely to change very often, so these would be good candidates for hosted tile layers. If your boundaries have census data, you can display these as polygons and enable pop-ups to show the attribute information.
If you want the rapid drawing times of tiles but disk space on the hosting server is a concern or you need to update the tiles occasionally, publish a hosted vector tile layer. Note that creating vector tiles requires ArcGIS Pro.
If your data is updated frequently and the features require editing, publish your data as a hosted feature layer. Features expose the geometry, attributes, and symbol information for vector GIS features. They are useful when you need to expose data for display, query, and editing on the web. When published as a hosted feature layer, your data can be updated and edited as often as you need. Emergency management is a typical example of data that changes frequently. During an active event, emergency responders can communicate with the public by updating disaster boundaries, adding new shelter locations, and so on. Presenting this data as a hosted feature layer allows the responders and citizens to quickly see the latest emergency information.
Control who can update your features
To allow everyone who has access to the hosted feature layer to update the data, you can enable editing and choose the type of edits you want others to make. For example, you can restrict editing to adding features only or updating existing features only. You can also allow everyone to add, update, and delete features. If you share your hosted feature layer publicly with editing enabled, anyone with access to the hosted feature layer URL can edit the data.
As the owner of the features stored in the map, you can perform edits in Map Viewer using the editing tools available in the app.
When working with a hosted feature layer, the owner of the features, administrators of the organization, and members of a shared update group that the layer has been shared with can also choose to open the layer in Map Viewer with full editing control even if editing is disabled.