Consider using Bing Maps

[johnczer]

Thanks for sharing your weather project! This isn't really an issue but I was lead here from the Lekker Logic site and saw your post about the weather site using API keys. I was working with the other one and trying to change from a Google API which is free to some extent but still requires ones payment info to be on file which I do not like. I was wondering if you had considered using the Bing Maps Api which is also free and does not require payment info, at least for now:)

[askmrsinh]

Hi, thanks for your suggestion.
This was my first web project in Java and is not meant to be used in a production environment.

Originally, Google didn't need payment information for using their Maps API (under limits) but I agree with what you said. Hence, I would like to switch to using https://www.openstreetmap.org.
The thing with using third party APIs is that continuity is not guaranteed. Things will eventually break. Take for example the recent acquisition of Dark Sky by Apple: Apple acquires popular weather app Dark Sky and will shut down the Android version. Come 2021 the API (which is also used in this project) will be useless.

I do plan to rewrite the project so that the functionality is not so strongly tied to the underlying APIs used. Thank you for taking interest!