Head to head · Geocoding · October 2026 research run
Amazon Location Service vs Woosmap
Amazon Location Service scores 76.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Woosmap's 59.4 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do geocoding.
Best maps, geocoding and places APIs for AI agents · All 153 maps comparisons
Which one, for what
Best 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 78
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 81
- Agent ergonomics, 88 against 76
- Security & auth, 76 against 43
- Maintenance & community, 60 against 26
- Transparency & trust, 77 against 54
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
Woosmap C
Best for Store locators, address autocomplete and distance for retail and logistics teams that keep their own location data in the platform, with an MCP server for agents.
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
No public changelog or release notes for the APIs
Why the edge
Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.
Maintenance & community Amazon Location Service +34
Amazon Location Service 60
Read as a closed service, by the listing's own service models, as the S3 re-check of 1 November read models/s3. The newest API change is still the geo-maps model on 17 August 2026 (point-of-interest density and category filters on maps), 76 days before the check. The models repository had commits to 30 October, none touching the geo-places, geo-routes, geo-maps or location models (20 of 30). In the last 90 days we found that one model change plus two releases of the agent context package, v1.1.0 on 6 August and v1.2.0 on 11 September 2026, with no later tag. The two package releases are agent guidance for the service, not changes to it, so half, as manifold-mcp's skills releases were read (10 of 20). AWS What's New posts for the service run to 2 April 2026 (none in the feed's 100 items from 20 to 30 October), re:Post and paid support exist, and the agent context repository had no open issues on 8 October (10 of 15). Official SDKs are current, the aws-sdk-js-v3 release v3.1161.0 and boto3 1.43.123, both tagged 30 October 2026 (15). SDKs regenerate from the model on AWS's release train, CI not checked (5 of 10). 20 + 10 + 10 + 15 + 5 = 60.
Woosmap 26
No dated API release, changelog or release note found. The newest dated activity we saw is the public woosmap-samples repository on 16 September 2026, which isn't an API release (10). No dated changes to count in the last 90 days (0). Support by email and a support centre, with no public changelog (5). Official JavaScript, iOS and Android SDKs exist, but we couldn't check their versions because the GitHub API was rate-limited and two SDK repository names didn't resolve; the MCP server isn't in the official MCP registry (8). The samples carry tests, per the rate-limits page (3). 10+0+5+8+3 = 26.
Security & auth Amazon Location Service +33
Amazon Location Service 76
Three credential routes, SigV4 with IAM, Amazon Cognito, and API keys limited to named actions and resources with optional expiry and referrer or app restrictions, which earns 30 (the API key page re-read on 1 November). Less 10 because the API key is sent in the key query parameter, the only documented way to present it (20). API keys reach only read calls on Maps, Places and Routes, and IAM policies scope each action and resource (18 of 20). Results carry place names and third-party map data, and no prompt-injection guidance was found in the reviewed documentation (5 of 15). CloudTrail records management events by default and data events on request, and CloudWatch reports usage by ApiKeyName (15). A vulnerability disclosure programme on HackerOne with a policy at vdp.aws.security, public security bulletins (none from 17 October to 1 November names Amazon Location), audit reports in AWS Artifact, Amazon Location Service in SOC 1, 2 and 3 scope on the list updated 11 August 2026 (per the 17 October check), and a FedRAMP High announcement of 28 October 2024. The aws.amazon.com security.txt, re-read on 1 November, expires on 16 October 2027. No paid bug bounty was found, so 2 points stay held back, as on the S3, SES, Polly and Secrets Manager re-checks of 17 October and the S3 re-check of 1 November (18 of 20). 20 + 18 + 5 + 15 + 18 = 76.
Woosmap 43
Public keys are read-only and must carry a domain or IP restriction. Private keys are read-only or read and write (fixed at creation), restricted by IP, iOS or Android, and can go in an X-Api-Key header. Less 10 because private_key in the query string is a documented option and the default in the spec (17). Read-only keys and the read/write split give least privilege; no confirmation step on dataset deletes was found (16). find_nearby and get_place_details return public POI data, ratings and opening hours, with no prompt-injection guidance (7). Console usage per project wasn't checked (3). www.woosmap.com/.well-known/security.txt returns 404, and we found no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification (0). 17+16+7+3+0 = 43.
Transparency & trust Amazon Location Service +23
Amazon Location Service 77
Closed service under the AWS Service Terms (last updated 30 October 2026, re-read on 1 November), whose section 82 sets out storage, caching and attribution rules in detail (15 of 30). The guide says device positions are kept 30 days, geofences until deleted, and that queries are stripped of customer metadata before they go to data providers (per the 8 October check). Section 82.1 agrees and adds that providers may process requests outside the chosen region. No retention period was found for Places and Routes requests (20 of 30). Section 82.3 still allows AWS to change or drop a provider or feature on notice "where practicable", and no dated deprecation notice or end date for the v1 APIs was found (5 of 20). AWS's sub-processor page, re-read on 1 November (last updated 30 October 2026), lists Esri for Amazon Location in Australia, Germany and the USA and Grabtaxi Holdings and HERE North America in Ireland, Japan, Singapore and the USA, says processing happens in the customer's selected Regions and the providers' locations, and promises 30 days' notice of a new sub-processor. The region is chosen per request (20 of 20, as for S3, SES and Secrets Manager). 15 + 20 + 5 + 20 = 60.
Woosmap 54
Editorial half only. Closed service under online terms that name WOOSMAP SAS of Montpellier and the Commercial Court of Paris (15). The privacy policy covers website visitors only, and we found no statement on how long API request data is kept (5). The pricing page says the Address API is 'being deprecated for Pro Plan subscriptions', with no date (5). The legal notice says the site is hosted by Amazon Web Services; no sub-processor list or data location for the APIs was found (6). 15+5+5+6 = 31.
Reliability Amazon Location Service +17
Amazon Location Service 95
Hosted reading. AWS Health Dashboard with a feed per service and region (20). The Amazon Location feeds for us-east-1 and eu-west-1 held no events on 1 November 2026 (last built 31 October), and the dashboard's event history, re-read on 1 November, names Amazon Location in no event. Its oldest event is the us-east-1 one of 28 October 2025, the open Middle East events of March 2026 don't list it, and the newest update is the API Gateway us-west-2 event of 30 October 2026. The public dashboard lists only broad events, so a clean feed says less than a small vendor's detailed page (30). Default rates published per operation, re-read on 1 November, 100 a second for each Places call, 20 for CalculateRoutes, isolines and SnapToRoads, 5 for CalculateRouteMatrix and OptimizeWaypoints, with a burst of 80 per cent (the burst rule per the 8 October check) (15). Throttling returns ThrottlingException with HTTP 429, marked retryable in the service model, and every v2 call is a read, but the guide gives no backoff or Retry-After guidance (10 of 15). Amazon Location SLA at 99.9 per cent monthly uptime per region (last updated 5 May 2022, re-read on 1 November) (10). GA (10). 20 + 30 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 95.
Woosmap 78
Hosted lines. Atlassian Statuspage at status.woosmap.com with seven components (Localities, Store Search, Geolocation, Distance, Address, Map and Indoor APIs) (20). The status home page lists no incidents from 23 October to 6 November 2026. The full history page loads by script and the site's robots.txt disallows /api/, so the rest of the 90 days wasn't read and the line is held between the unreadable and minor tiers (10). Each endpoint's reference states its own rate limit, such as 50 a second, shared by a project's keys (15). Every response carries RateLimit-Policy and RateLimit headers, and the rate-limits page says to wait t seconds after a 429, retry at most three times and back off 1, 2 and 4 seconds when the header is missing, with sample code (15). A 99.9% SLA on the Enterprise plan per the pricing page; we didn't read its terms (8). GA (10). 20+10+15+15+8+10 = 78.
Agent ergonomics Amazon Location Service +12
Amazon Location Service 88
API reading of the checklist. Places responses stay at the core fields unless AdditionalFeatures asks for more, and MaxResults caps the count, but there is no field selection and route responses can reach the 6 MB limit (20 of 25). MaxResults on six of seven Places calls, NextToken on SearchText and SearchNearby, and filters by country, bounding box and place type (18 of 20). Four typed errors per API, with a reason and field list on ValidationException (17 of 20). Every v2 operation is marked read-only in the model, so retries are safe. No hints apply to a plain API (18 of 20). One required field or none on most calls, an API key that avoids SigV4 signing, and SDKs on npm and PyPI among others (15).
Woosmap 76
API reading, with the hosted MCP server's nine tools as a second surface. Localities and Stores responses can be narrowed by type, components and fields, and the MCP set is small (20). Store search takes query filters, radius and paging, and the Distance Matrix has an async mode for large jobs (17). Documented error codes including 402 for billing and 429 with reset timing (17). Reads are safe to retry, but no idempotency key was found for the Datasets and Stores write endpoints, and the MCP docs don't mention tool annotations (10). Official JavaScript, iOS and Android SDKs and samples in Python and JavaScript, with few required parameters (12). 20+17+17+10+12 = 76.
Schema & documentation Amazon Location Service +6
Amazon Location Service 87
The Smithy service models for geo-places, geo-routes, geo-maps and location (API version 2020-11-19) are public in aws/api-models-aws and in every AWS SDK, a machine-readable contract in the role OpenAPI plays (25). llms.txt for the developer guide, a Markdown twin of each page and the whole guide as full.md (10). A choose-an-API page and per-operation pages with use cases say when each call fits, with less on when not to use one (15 of 20). Inputs carry enums and ranges, such as MaxResults 1 to 100 and QueryText up to 200 characters (15). How-to pages give sample requests, responses, cURL and CLI commands, and each action lists its errors with HTTP codes, but the ValidationException fields are documented as "Test stub" (12 of 15). Versioned paths (/v2/), yet the document history, re-read on 1 November, still has one entry, dated 31 October 2024, and changes are announced only in AWS What's New posts (10 of 15).
Woosmap 81
OpenAPI 3.1 spec, version 1.46.3, with 47 paths across Localities, Stores, Distance, Datasets, Indoor, Map and what3words endpoints (25). llms.txt as a routing index, llms-full.txt and a Markdown twin of every page (10). llms.txt says which pages are authoritative for parameters and which explain products, and endpoint pages describe purpose, with little on when not to call one (15). Typed parameters from the spec with enums and required fields (13). The spec documents 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 409, 422 and 429 responses, and pages carry examples (13). The spec is versioned, but no public changelog or release notes were found (developers.woosmap.com/changelog/ and /release-notes/ return 404) (5). 25+10+15+13+13+5 = 81.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Amazon Location Service | Woosmap | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 95 | 78 | Amazon Location Service +17 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 87 | 81 | Amazon Location Service +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 88 | 76 | Amazon Location Service +12 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 76 | 43 | Amazon Location Service +33 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 30 | 30 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 60 | 26 | Amazon Location Service +34 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 77 | 54 | Amazon Location Service +23 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | BB 76.5/100 | C 59.4/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Amazon Location Service | Woosmap |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | WOOSMAP SAS |
| Hosted endpoint | https://places.geo.us-east-1.amazonaws.com | https://api.woosmap.com/mcp |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API 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 | none |
| Tools exposed | none | 9 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-08-17 | none |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-01 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-18 | 2024-07-01 |
| 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 | not found in the text |
| 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 |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (4) | none |
How the scores have moved
Woosmap
No score change since it was listed.
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.
Woosmap
Woosmap publishes an OpenAPI 3.1 spec, llms.txt with Markdown pages, per-endpoint rate limits and 429 retry rules, plus a hosted nine-tool MCP server. No changelog, security.txt, API data retention statement or readable per-request price was found, and private keys can travel in the query string.
Before you call either
Amazon Location Service
- 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 - Set
IntendedUsetoStoragebefore saving or caching any Places result. The defaultSingleUseresults may not be stored under section 82.4 of the AWS Service Terms - Read
PricingBucketin each response. RequestingContact,Access,TimeZoneorPhonemesinAdditionalFeaturesmoves a Places call from $0.50 to $1.50 per 1,000 - 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 - Back off on HTTP 429
ThrottlingException. The burst allowance is 80 per cent of the per-second rate within any part of a second
Woosmap
- Send the private key in the X-Api-Key header, not the private_key query parameter
- Use a read-only private key for the MCP server unless the task writes stores or datasets
- On 429 wait the
tseconds from the RateLimit header, retry at most three times, and pause batches whenrreaches 0 - Use find_stores_nearby for the customer's own locations and find_nearby for public POIs
- Read endpoint parameters from the /api-reference/ Markdown pages, which llms.txt marks as authoritative
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Amazon Location Service or Woosmap?
Amazon Location Service scores 76.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Woosmap's 59.4 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.
Do Amazon Location Service and Woosmap need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call Amazon Location Service and Woosmap without installing anything?
Yes. Amazon Location Service has a hosted endpoint at https://places.geo.us-east-1.amazonaws.com and Woosmap at https://api.woosmap.com/mcp.
Other comparisons with Amazon Location Service or Woosmap
- Amazon Location Service vs ArcGIS Location Platform
- Amazon Location Service vs Azure Maps
- Amazon Location Service vs Geoapify Location Platform + MCP
- Amazon Location Service vs Geocodio
- Amazon Location Service vs Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP
- Amazon Location Service vs HERE Location Services
- Amazon Location Service vs LocationIQ
- Amazon Location Service vs Mapbox APIs + MCP
- Amazon Location Service vs MapQuest
- Amazon Location Service vs MapTiler Cloud
- Amazon Location Service vs NextBillion.ai
- Amazon Location Service vs Nominatim
- Amazon Location Service vs OpenCage Geocoding API
- Amazon Location Service vs Radar
- Amazon Location Service vs Stadia Maps
- Amazon Location Service vs TomTom Maps APIs + MCP
- ArcGIS Location Platform vs Woosmap
- Azure Maps vs Woosmap
- Geoapify Location Platform + MCP vs Woosmap
- Geocodio vs Woosmap
- Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs Woosmap
- HERE Location Services vs Woosmap
- LocationIQ vs Woosmap
- Mapbox APIs + MCP vs Woosmap
- MapQuest vs Woosmap
- MapTiler Cloud vs Woosmap
- Nominatim vs Woosmap
- OpenCage Geocoding API vs Woosmap
- Radar vs Woosmap
- Stadia Maps vs Woosmap
- TomTom Maps APIs + MCP vs Woosmap
- NextBillion.ai vs Woosmap
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/amazon-location-vs-woosmap.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/amazon-location.json·/api/v1/tools/woosmap.json - From a terminal
anchor compare amazon-location woosmap(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "amazon-location", "b": "woosmap"}at/mcp, no key