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Head to head · Geo geocode · October 2026 research run

Amazon Location Service vs Stadia Maps

Amazon Location Service scores 74.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Stadia Maps's 65.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Stadia Maps leads on payments & pricing, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do geo geocode. Stadia Maps is cheaper for geo geocode, $0.40 against $0.50 per 1,000 requests.

Amazon Location ServiceAmazon Web Services · HTTP API BB74.1/100#68 of 722 Stadia MapsStadia Maps · HTTP API B65.2/100#261 of 722

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 63
  • Agent ergonomics, 88 against 80
  • Security & auth, 73 against 40

Also in its favour

  • 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

Stadia Maps B

Good for Cost-sensitive geocoding, routing and tiles on OpenStreetMap data, with traffic-influenced routing since April 2026.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 80 against 60
  • Transparency & trust, 76 against 70

Also in its favour

  • Cheaper for geo geocode, $0.40 against $0.50 per 1,000 requests
  • Runs on your own machine
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

Free plan is for development, testing and demos only

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAmazon Location ServiceStadia MapsEdge
Reliability16%209563Amazon Location Service +32
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28786Amazon Location Service +1
Agent ergonomics13%16.28880Amazon Location Service +8
Security & auth14%17.57340Amazon Location Service +33
Payments & pricing10%12.52040Stadia Maps +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86080Stadia Maps +20
Transparency & trust7%8.87076Stadia Maps +6
Negative events≤1500
Total74.1 · BB65.2 · B

Facts side by side

FactAmazon Location ServiceStadia Maps
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorAmazon Web ServicesStadia Maps
Hosted endpointhttps://places.geo.us-east-1.amazonaws.comhttps://api.stadiamaps.com
TransportsHTTPHTTP, stdio
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
Price for geo geocode$0.50 per 1,000 requests$0.40 per 1,000 requests
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under the AWS Customer Agreement and AWS Service Terms. The AWS SDK clients and the agent context package on GitHub are Apache-2.0BSD-3-Clause (MCP server)
Tools exposednone6
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-08-172026-09-30
Terms last updated2026-10-012026-03-18
Privacy policy last updated2026-05-182026-10-01
Customer content may train modelsyes, with an opt-outnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyesyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot found in the text
Popularity427k npm/wk23 stars, 6.1k npm/wk, 192 PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone3.5/5 (2)

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.

Stadia Maps

Public OpenAPI spec (11.1.0) with generated TypeScript and Python SDKs. Free plan is for development, testing and demos only.

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

Stadia Maps

  1. Send the key as Authorization: Stadia-Auth <key> rather than in the URL
  2. Try Autocomplete v2 (1 credit) before a full geocode (20 credits) when a name is enough
  3. Check the dashboard's credit balance before retrying a 429, since it may mean the month is spent
  4. Don't write geocodes to a database on Free or Starter
  5. Use bulk-geocode for addresses only, not POI names

Questions

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

Amazon Location Service scores 74.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Stadia Maps's 65.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Stadia Maps leads on payments & pricing, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

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

Stadia Maps, at $0.40 per 1,000 requests against $0.50 per 1,000 requests for Amazon Location Service. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

Do Amazon Location Service and Stadia Maps need an API key?

Both need an API key.

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

Yes. Amazon Location Service has a hosted endpoint at https://places.geo.us-east-1.amazonaws.com and Stadia Maps at https://api.stadiamaps.com.

Other comparisons with Amazon Location Service or Stadia Maps

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