Cheapest Maps APIs

Question

What are your go-to maps APIs for budget minded businesses? Where is there still room for improvement?The Google price hike was a while ago but APIs continue to be too expensive for folks [1].[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26991625#27003898

dirkt · Accepted Answer

For your frontend: MapLibre GL [1] is the fork of Mapbox GL that's still open source, so you don't have to pay for each usage.
For tile hosting: Openmaptiles [2], based on Openstreetmap data. Either pay them for out-of-the-box experience, or use their open-source code to set up your own server at whatever hosting for whatever price you prefer.
[1] https://github.com/MapLibre/maplibre-gl-js
[2] https://openmaptiles.org/

billylo · Answer

If you are curious about which routing engines fit you better, try this https://superroute.evergreen-labs.com(I made it to for myself and later shared it with friends and others.)

stadeschuldt · Answer

Here has a freemium tier (no credit card required) which gives you 250k transactions per month for free.https://developer.here.com/pricingDisclaimer: I work for here.

phonon · Answer

https://aws.amazon.com/location/pricing/

nrdvana · Answer

Are you aware of OpenStreetMap.org ? They have an entire ecosystem of APIs and services and download-data-and-serve-it-yourself options.

tristan123456 · Answer

Apple Maps is cheap - 250000 views per day are for free. You will have to create your own client JWTs afaik. Not sure about APIs.

NetToolKit · Answer

We at NetToolKit offer map tiles (both vector and raster), geocoding, and for the US, we offer autocompletion: https://www.nettoolkit.com/geo/about
$10 for 100,000 transactions (e.g. geocoding requests, tile sessions)
We have a tool to compare geocoding results across different providers: https://www.nettoolkit.com/geo/demo
We also have a JavaScript library (MapWrapper) that makes working with maps easier (including allowing you to easily switch among a few of the different tile providers).
We welcome feedback!

tapvt · Answer

With regards to what features?Map display? Geolocation? Routing?I am also curious.

simfree · Answer

On this same tangent, does anyone know a cheap API for suggesting and validating addresses?

vami · Answer

https://www.maptiler.com/cloud/plans/

iudqnolq · Answer

If you're in the UK, take a look at the Ordnance Survey. Some data is open source, some very reasonably priced.

taf2 · Answer

Checkout mapbox not sure if the pricing is better the but the api is easy to use and the pricing is pretty clear IMO

Cheapest Maps APIs

What are your go-to maps APIs for budget minded businesses? Where is there still room for improvement?
The Google price hike was a while ago but APIs continue to be too expensive for folks [1].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26991625#27003898

If you are curious about which routing engines fit you better, try this https://superroute.evergreen-labs.com
(I made it to for myself and later shared it with friends and others.)

Here has a freemium tier (no credit card required) which gives you 250k transactions per month for free.
https://developer.here.com/pricing
Disclaimer: I work for here.