# Amazon Location Service vs Azure Maps

> Amazon Location Service scores 74.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Azure Maps's 67.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Azure Maps leads on maintenance & community. Both do geo geocode. Amazon Location Service is cheaper for geo geocode, $0.50 against $4.50 per 1,000…

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- Updated: 2026-10-08

Amazon Location Service scores 74.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Azure Maps's 67.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Azure Maps leads on maintenance & community. Both do geo geocode. Amazon Location Service is cheaper for geo geocode, $0.50 against $4.50 per 1,000 requests.

- Amazon Location Service: grade BB, 74.1/100, rank #68 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amazon-location.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amazon-location.json
- Azure Maps: grade B, 67.9/100, rank #196 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/azure-maps.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/azure-maps.json

## Which one, for what

### Amazon Location Service (BB)

Good for: Operators already on AWS who want geocoding, places and routing inside IAM, CloudTrail and one bill, with HERE data and GrabMaps for Southeast Asia.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 95 against 81
- Agent ergonomics, 88 against 73
- Security & auth, 73 against 66

Also in its favour:
- Cheaper for geo geocode, $0.50 against $4.50 per 1,000 requests
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: The API key is sent as the `key` query parameter, the only documented way to present it

### Azure Maps (B)

Good for: Teams already on Azure that want geocoding and routing under Entra ID roles and one flat price.

Ahead on:
- Maintenance & community, 67 against 60

Watch for: Place and category search exist only in Search 1.0. Search 2026-01-01, which supersedes it, has geocoding, autocomplete, reverse geocoding and polygons


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Amazon Location Service | Azure Maps | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 95 | 81 | Amazon Location Service +14 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 83 | Amazon Location Service +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 73 | Amazon Location Service +15 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 73 | 66 | Amazon Location Service +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 20 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 67 | Azure Maps +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 74 | Azure Maps +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **74.1 · BB** | **67.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Amazon Location Service | Azure Maps |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | Microsoft Azure |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://places.geo.us-east-1.amazonaws.com` | `https://atlas.microsoft.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| Price for geo geocode | $0.50 per 1,000 requests | $4.50 per 1,000 requests |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the AWS Customer Agreement and AWS Service Terms. The AWS SDK clients and the agent context package on GitHub are Apache-2.0 | Proprietary service under Microsoft's Product Terms. The Azure SDK client libraries are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-08-17 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-01 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-18 | 2026-09-01 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 427k npm/wk | 9.1k npm/wk, 25k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**Amazon Location Service.** Places, Routes and Maps calls work over plain HTTPS with an API key limited to named actions, and every one of the 17 operations is read-only with typed inputs. Access starts with an AWS account a person opens, the key travels in the URL query string, and stored results cost eight times the single-use rate.

**Azure Maps.** Azure Maps publishes OpenAPI documents for every service, per-service rate limits, a 99.9 per cent SLA and written rules on storing results, and Entra ID roles can limit a caller to one service. Place search exists only in Search 1.0, which the newer version has superseded, and the REST client libraries are all beta.

## Before you call either

### Amazon Location Service

1. Call the v2 endpoints (`places.geo.<region>.amazonaws.com/v2/geocode`, `routes.geo`, `maps.geo`). They need no resource creation, unlike the v1 place index and route calculator calls
2. Set `IntendedUse` to `Storage` before saving or caching any Places result. The default `SingleUse` results may not be stored under section 82.4 of the AWS Service Terms
3. Read `PricingBucket` in each response. Requesting `Contact`, `Access`, `TimeZone` or `Phonemes` in `AdditionalFeatures` moves a Places call from $0.50 to $1.50 per 1,000
4. Keep the API key out of logs and shared URLs, since it travels as `?key=`. Use SigV4 with an IAM role for server-side work, and for the Jobs API, which refuses API keys
5. Back off on HTTP 429 `ThrottlingException`. The burst allowance is 80 per cent of the per-second rate within any part of a second

### Azure Maps

1. Send the key in the `subscription-key` header, or use `Authorization: Bearer` with `x-ms-client-id`. The key also works as a URL parameter, which leaks into logs.
2. Call `GET /geocode?api-version=2026-01-01` for addresses. It can return 200 with no results, so check `confidence`, `matchCodes` and the entity type before use.
3. Use Search 1.0 (`/search/poi/json`, `/search/nearby/json`, `/search/fuzzy/json`) for places. The 2026-01-01 version has no place search.
4. Use `eu.atlas.microsoft.com` or `us.atlas.microsoft.com` to keep request data in that geography.
5. Don't store route or tile results beyond six months, and never for serving several users. The product terms allow keeping geocodes while the account is active.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Amazon Location Service or Azure Maps?

Amazon Location Service scores 74.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Azure Maps's 67.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Azure Maps leads on maintenance & community.

### Which is cheaper for geo geocode, Amazon Location Service or Azure Maps?

Amazon Location Service, at $0.50 per 1,000 requests against $4.50 per 1,000 requests for Azure Maps. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

### Do Amazon Location Service and Azure Maps need an API key?

Amazon Location Service needs an API key. Azure Maps takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Amazon Location Service and Azure Maps without installing anything?

Yes. Amazon Location Service has a hosted endpoint at https://places.geo.us-east-1.amazonaws.com and Azure Maps at https://atlas.microsoft.com.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-azure-maps.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-azure-maps.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "amazon-location", "b": "azure-maps"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare amazon-location azure-maps`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amazon-location.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/azure-maps.json

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