Single file (not small; 120GB) to contain all tiles, serving which is made efficient using HTTP Range Requests, or as they write in their intro:
Protomaps is an open source system for interactive web maps.
There are three major parts of Protomaps:
- PMTiles, an open archive format for pyramids of tile data, accessible via HTTP Range Requests.
- An ecosystem of tools and libraries for creating, serving and manipulating
- A cartographic “basemap” showing features in the world like roads, water bodies and labels, based on the OpenStreetMap dataset, and delivered as one big PMTiles archive.