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Head to head · Geo geocode · October 2026 research run

Azure Maps vs Stadia Maps

Azure Maps scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Stadia Maps's 65.2 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Stadia Maps leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do geo geocode. Stadia Maps is cheaper for geo geocode, $0.40 against $4.50 per 1,000 requests.

Azure MapsMicrosoft Azure · HTTP API B67.9/100#196 of 722 Stadia MapsStadia Maps · HTTP API B65.2/100#261 of 722

Which one, for what

Azure Maps B

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

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 81 against 63
  • Security & auth, 66 against 40

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

Stadia Maps B

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

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 80 against 73
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 80 against 67

Also in its favour

  • Cheaper for geo geocode, $0.40 against $4.50 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 runAzure MapsStadia MapsEdge
Reliability16%208163Azure Maps +18
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28386Stadia Maps +3
Agent ergonomics13%16.27380Stadia Maps +7
Security & auth14%17.56640Azure Maps +26
Payments & pricing10%12.52040Stadia Maps +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86780Stadia Maps +13
Transparency & trust7%8.87476Stadia Maps +2
Negative events≤1500
Total67.9 · B65.2 · B

Facts side by side

FactAzure MapsStadia Maps
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorMicrosoft AzureStadia Maps
Hosted endpointhttps://atlas.microsoft.comhttps://api.stadiamaps.com
TransportsHTTPHTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
Price for geo geocode$4.50 per 1,000 requests$0.40 per 1,000 requests
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under Microsoft's Product Terms. The Azure SDK client libraries are MITBSD-3-Clause (MCP server)
Tools exposednone6
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-09-302026-09-30
Terms last updatedno date given2026-03-18
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-012026-10-01
Customer content may train modelsyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot found in the text
Popularity9.1k npm/wk, 25k PyPI/wk23 stars, 6.1k npm/wk, 192 PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone3.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

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.

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

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.

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, Azure Maps or Stadia Maps?

Azure Maps scores 67.9 (B) on agent readiness against Stadia Maps's 65.2 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Stadia Maps leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

Which is cheaper for geo geocode, Azure Maps or Stadia Maps?

Stadia Maps, at $0.40 per 1,000 requests against $4.50 per 1,000 requests for Azure Maps. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

Do Azure Maps and Stadia Maps need an API key?

Azure Maps takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Stadia Maps needs an API key.

Can an agent call Azure Maps and Stadia Maps without installing anything?

Yes. Azure Maps has a hosted endpoint at https://atlas.microsoft.com and Stadia Maps at https://api.stadiamaps.com.

Other comparisons with Azure Maps or Stadia Maps

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