# Amazon Location Service vs HERE Location Services

> Amazon Location Service scores 74.1 (BB) to HERE Location Services's 58 (C) for geocoding. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-here-location-services
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-here-location-services.md (~2,750 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-here-location-services.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-here-location-services.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Amazon Location Service scores 74.1 (BB) on agent readiness against HERE Location Services's 58 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do geocoding.

- Amazon Location Service: grade BB, 74.1/100, rank #77 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amazon-location.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amazon-location.json
- HERE Location Services: grade C, 58/100, rank #591 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/here-location-services.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/here-location-services.json
- Best maps, geocoding and places APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/maps/index.md
- All 78 maps comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/maps/index.md

## 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 57
- Agent ergonomics, 88 against 74
- Security & auth, 73 against 65
- Payments & pricing, 20 against 10
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 63

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- No incidents deducted, where HERE Location Services loses 3 points for them

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

### HERE Location Services (C)

Good for: Fleet and logistics work that needs truck routing, large matrices, isolines, traffic and transit from one vendor with an SLA.

Watch for: Platform Terms section f forbids using HERE Materials in connection with a machine learning or AI system, generative AI included. This matters before any probe is run


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Amazon Location Service | HERE Location Services | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 95 | 57 | Amazon Location Service +38 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 87 | even |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 74 | Amazon Location Service +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 73 | 65 | Amazon Location Service +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 10 | Amazon Location Service +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 63 | Amazon Location Service +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **74.1 · BB** | **58 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Amazon Location Service | HERE Location Services |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | HERE Technologies |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://places.geo.us-east-1.amazonaws.com` | `https://geocode.search.hereapi.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| Price for geocoding | $0.50 per 1,000 requests | not published |
| 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 the HERE Platform Terms |
| Tools exposed | none | 13 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-08-17 | 2026-09-09 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2023-09-18 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-18 | 2024-08-29 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | not found in the text |
| 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 | none |

## 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.

**HERE Location Services.** Each endpoint page carries an OpenAPI 3.0 definition as Markdown, and HERE publishes 99.9 per cent monthly availability targets and a six-month deprecation policy. The Platform Terms of September 2023 forbid using HERE Materials in connection with a machine learning or AI system, and the price table could not be read.

## 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

### HERE Location Services

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer` with an OAuth token where logs are kept. The `apiKey` query parameter puts the secret in every URL
2. Do not store results for more than 30 days, and follow the HTTP caching headers on each response
3. Treat 429 and 503 as throttling. HERE says a traffic surge can be throttled for about 10 minutes below the account's quota
4. Read `code`, `cause` and `action` in the error body, and quote `correlationId` to support
5. For Location Reasoning, send `initialize`, keep the `Mcp-Session-Id` header on later calls, and send a bearer token on `tools/call`

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Amazon Location Service or HERE Location Services?

Amazon Location Service scores 74.1 (BB) on agent readiness against HERE Location Services's 58 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Amazon Location Service and HERE Location Services need an API key?

Amazon Location Service needs an API key. HERE Location Services takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Amazon Location Service and HERE Location Services without installing anything?

Yes. Amazon Location Service has a hosted endpoint at https://places.geo.us-east-1.amazonaws.com and HERE Location Services at https://geocode.search.hereapi.com/v1.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Amazon Location Service or HERE Location Services

- [Amazon Location Service vs ArcGIS Location Platform](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-arcgis.md)
- [Amazon Location Service vs Azure Maps](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-azure-maps.md)
- [Amazon Location Service vs Geoapify Location Platform + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-geoapify.md)
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- [Geoapify Location Platform + MCP vs HERE Location Services](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geoapify-vs-here-location-services.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs HERE Location Services](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-here-location-services.md)
- [HERE Location Services vs LocationIQ](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/here-location-services-vs-locationiq.md)
- [HERE Location Services vs Mapbox APIs + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/here-location-services-vs-mapbox.md)
- [HERE Location Services vs MapQuest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/here-location-services-vs-mapquest.md)
- [HERE Location Services vs OpenCage Geocoding API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/here-location-services-vs-opencage.md)
- [HERE Location Services vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/here-location-services-vs-radar.md)
- [HERE Location Services vs Stadia Maps](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/here-location-services-vs-stadia-maps.md)
- [HERE Location Services vs TomTom Maps APIs + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/here-location-services-vs-tomtom.md)