How to choose which geocoding provider to use?

[cameronehrlich]

There are a lot of provider options to chose from, but there is nothing in the documentation to suggest a reason for using any one of them in particular. Are some of the providers more accurate? Are some faster? Are some of them more rate limited than others?

[brianrusso]

Your questions pretty much hit on the reasons you’d go with one or the other.

Both Google and Microsoft are good starting points with good databases and generous quotas. It’s more a consideration if you’re outside of mainstream Asia/US/Europe. Some places can be a real hassle due to either poor data coverage or an addressing system that does not lend itself well to the assumptions built into linear referenced geocode systems.

Personally I find Bangkok street addresses to be hopeless and hope I never have to geocode anything there.

• bri

On Dec 10, 2014, at 10:30 PM, Cameron Ehrlich notifications@github.com wrote:

There are a lot of provider options to chose from, but there is nothing in the documentation to suggest a reason for using any one of them in particular. Are some of the providers more accurate? Are some faster? Are some of them more rate limited than others?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub #90.

[ijl]

I don't think accurate documentation could be provided on this. It's more tractable, to me, to do one thing well here and defer to the documentation on each service's site.

[cameronehrlich]

I've at least determined that these ones are free and don't require any credentials (at least when you are not reverse-geocoding)

GoogleV3, Nominatim, ArcGIS, OpenMapQuest, Yandex

[ericpalakovichcarr]

You have to be careful though. Google's API requires you to use the data only on their maps (e.g NOT open street maps, mapbox, etc). Which means you can only display it on a publicly available google map which doesn't require a login, or pay for Google Maps API for Business at $10,000 a year.

Other's have similar (but not equal) restrictions, like Bing Maps, Yahoo, and Mapquest (non-community version).

[LennyLip]

Yandex geocoding data also must not be stored in your database (only cache) and must use only on public yandex maps in your service. Also Yandex geocoder API have limit for 25000 requests per day.

[ijl]

If anyone'd like to add to the docs explaining what you need to be aware of when choosing a service, that'd be welcome.

[LennyLip]

Yandex.Maps API Terms of Use - http://legal.yandex.com/maps_api/

[KostyaEsmukov]

I'm closing this in favor of #268