Head to head · Geocoding · October 2026 research run

Geoapify Location Platform + MCP vs Geocodio

Geocodio scores 72.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Geoapify Location Platform + MCP's 58.1 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do geocoding.

Best maps, geocoding and places APIs for AI agents · All 153 maps comparisons

Which one, for what

Geoapify Location Platform + MCP C

Best for Cheap geocoding, category place search, routing and isolines on OpenStreetMap data, with commercial use on the free plan and EU hosting.

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for

No security.txt, disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification found

Geocodio BB

Best for Batch geocoding and district or census enrichment of addresses in the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, where results must be stored.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 70 against 60
  • Schema & documentation, 92 against 84
  • Agent ergonomics, 80 against 72
  • Security & auth, 58 against 29
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 86 against 69
  • Transparency & trust, 87 against 67

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for

Covers only the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and UK needs a Flex or Unlimited plan

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.

Security & auth Geocodio +29

Geoapify Location Platform + MCP 29

Plain API keys per project, which earns 20. Less the checklist's fixed 10 because the specs call the apiKey query parameter 'Recommended authentication method for public APIs'. The x-api-key header works too and the spec warns that keys in URLs can be logged (10). The APIs only read (12). Results are OpenStreetMap names and addresses, community-edited text, with no prompt-injection guidance (7). We didn't find per-call logs we could read (0). www.geoapify.com/.well-known/security.txt returned 404 on 4 November, and we found no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification (0). 10+12+7+0+0 = 29.

Geocodio 58

Revocable keys, five on pay-as-you-go, each with permissions (Lists and Distance off by default), which earns 25. Less 10 because the docs say 'All requests require &api_key=YOUR_API_KEY' and the OpenAPI spec defines only the query scheme, though an Authorization header has worked since March 2025 (15). Per-key permissions limit what a key can reach. DELETE on lists and distance jobs needs no confirmation (13). Results are addresses and government district, census and legislator data rather than user-written text. No prompt-injection guidance found (9). Usage per API key in the dashboard, downloadable as CSV, and billable-lookup headers on every response (8). Valid security.txt to 30 January 2030 with a PGP key and a responsible disclosure policy. SOC 2 Type II and annual penetration tests apply to the Enterprise platform only. No bug bounty found (13). 15+13+9+8+13 = 58.

Transparency & trust Geocodio +20

Geoapify Location Platform + MCP 67

Editorial half only. Closed service with readable terms, still version 5 of 2 February 2024 on 4 November, under Cypriot law (15). The privacy policy says data for successful requests is held no longer than 24 hours and that servers are hosted by Hetzner, with custom DPAs on request (possibly at a cost). The docs say Places and Batch results can be cached or stored with no limits, while the terms say nothing on storage (22). No deprecation policy or dated deprecation notice on the What's new page, and the terms reserve the right to suspend, terminate or change the Service at any time without notice (0). Six processors named, including Hetzner (Germany), Cloudflare and Google Firebase, without locations for most (15). 15+22+0+15 = 52.

Geocodio 87

Editorial half only. Closed service with clear, dated terms under Virginia law, and libraries and CLI under MIT (20). The privacy policy says API and spreadsheet input and results are deleted within 45 days, error logs kept 90 days, and customer data isn't used to train AI models. A separate data retention policy and llms.txt put Lists API data at 72 hours. Results may be stored permanently by the customer (27). Replaced API versions are guaranteed for at least 12 months, breaking changes come only with a new version, and the changelog marks each one 'Breaking' (18). The privacy policy names its processors, such as Sentry and Laravel Nightwatch, and the security page says self-serve is hosted in Europe (15). 20+27+18+15 = 80.

Maintenance & community Geocodio +17

Geoapify Location Platform + MCP 69

The What's new page dates two API entries on 2 November 2026 (Marker Icon API and Static Maps API marker options), two days before this check (30). In the 90 days from 6 August it lists API or MCP changes on 6 August (MCP Places and Routing tools), 28 August (MCP geometry operations), 23 October (Timezone API and get_timezone tool) and 2 November (two), and the OpenAPI repository has commits on 1, 2 and 25 September and 16, 23 and 30 October (20, from 15). A public changelog with an RSS feed and email support on paid plans. We didn't test support response (8 of 15, from 5). The JavaScript libraries are current, with geocoder-autocomplete at v3.1.0 on 27 July 2026, and the official MCP isn't in the MCP registry (6). The autocomplete SDK carries Jest tests (5). 30+20+8+6+5 = 69.

Geocodio 86

API v2.1 released 3 November 2026 (Australia and New Zealand), and PHP library 3.4.1 on 4 November (30). Dated changelog entries on 8 September, 1, 8, 9, 19, 22 and 31 October and 3 November 2026, plus library releases in October (20). Public changelog, support by email and a team-staffed help desk named on the pricing page. We didn't read GitHub issue reply times (12). Official Python 1.6.0 and Node 2.3.0 from 12 October and PHP 3.4.1 from 4 November are current (15). Each library and the CLI run CI on GitHub Actions; we didn't check whether the runs pass (9). 30+20+12+15+9 = 86.

Reliability Geocodio +10

Geoapify Location Platform + MCP 60

status.geoapify.com redirects to an UptimeRobot page. On 4 November its HTML again showed only an error fetching the data, which the page loads from stats.uptimerobot.com/api/, a path that host's robots.txt closes, so no component or incident was read. The page keeps its first award of 15 of 20 while the UptimeRobot split stays open, and 5 for a history we couldn't read (our limit, not a finding against Geoapify). Per-plan rates are published, 5 requests a second on Free up to 30 on API 250 (15). 429 is in the OpenAPI specs as 'Rate limit or quota exceeded' with a JSON body, but there's no Retry-After or backoff guidance, and the pricing page says limits are soft and Geoapify doesn't throttle in general (7, an earlier partial kept). The terms say all paid plans include a default SLA of 99.5 per cent monthly availability, with a 10 per cent discount below it and 50 per cent below 99 per cent (10). The APIs are GA. The MCP page gives no launch stage (8, an earlier partial kept). 15+5+15+7+10+8 = 60.

Geocodio 70

Hosted lines. incident.io status page at status.geocod.io with five components (Geocodio API, Dashboard, Enterprise API, Enterprise Dashboard, Website) and an incidents feed at /api/v2/incidents.json (20). In the 90 days to 6 November 2026 the feed lists one incident marked major, 'Spreadsheet geocoding jobs are failing' on 27 October from 12:35 to 15:15 UTC, and a PHP security patch on 21 October marked no impact, so one major outage of a core feature (10). 1,000 requests a minute on single geocoding for pay-as-you-go and Flex, 100 on Enterprise Flex (15). 429 carries X-RateLimit-Remaining, -Limit and -Period, and llms.txt and AGENTS.md give a retry rule per status code with capped backoff, plus client-side idempotency guidance for the non-idempotent list and batch writes (15). The pricing page lists custom SLAs as an add-on on Unlimited and Enterprise plans, with no published terms, so no SLA (0). GA (10). 20+10+15+15+0+10 = 70.

Payments & pricing Geocodio +10

Geoapify Location Platform + MCP 30

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Public plan prices with credit costs per request (1 credit for a simple geocode, place search, route or timezone lookup), but no per-unit overage price, since limits are soft and Geoapify asks heavy users to upgrade (10). Free plan of 3,000 credits a day with 'No credit card required', and commercial use allowed with attribution (20). Signup is a browser flow (0). 0+10+20+0 = 30.

Geocodio 40

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). $1 per 1,000 lookups after the free tier, and per-credit rates for every Flex tier, public without login (20). 2,500 lookups a day free with no card until usage passes the free tier (20). Signup and key creation are a browser flow at dash.geocod.io (0). 0+20+20+0 = 40.

Schema & documentation Geocodio +8

Geoapify Location Platform + MCP 84

OpenAPI 3.1 specs for 22 APIs and a separate spec per MCP tool in geoapify/geoapify-openapi-specs, with documented 400, 401, 429 and 500 responses, and the repository added the Timezone API on 23 October 2026 (25). apidocs.geoapify.com/llms.txt still serves the HTML home page on 4 November, and we found no Markdown docs for agents (0). The MCP page's 12 tools each carry a 'when to use' line and name the sibling tool to use instead, for example calculate_route_matrix sends you to calculate_route for geometry (18). Typed parameters with limits such as limit at most 100, and enums for type and format (13). Error examples in the specs, such as '"limit" must be less than or equal to 100', and a playground per API (13). v1 and v2 paths, versioned specs, and a dated public changelog at www.geoapify.com/news-and-updates/ with entries back to September 2022 and an RSS feed, which the 1 October check missed (15, from 5). 25+0+18+13+13+15 = 84.

Geocodio 92

OpenAPI 3.0.1 spec, version 2.1.0, with 11 paths (25). llms.txt and an AGENTS.md written for agents (10). llms.txt and AGENTS.md say when to use each endpoint and when not to, such as the Lists API over looping single calls, the upload tool for a one-off spreadsheet and straightline over driving distance unless road distance is needed (19). Typed parameters with country values, component fields and documented limits, though fields is a comma-separated string (12). Error table with retry guidance, examples throughout, but the spec documents 200, 400, 403, 404, 422 and 424 and not 429 or 500 (11). Versioned paths from v1 to v2.1 and a dated public changelog with entries back to 2024 (15). 25+10+19+12+11+15 = 92.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runGeoapify Location Platform + MCPGeocodioEdge
Reliability16%206070Geocodio +10
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28492Geocodio +8
Agent ergonomics13%16.27280Geocodio +8
Security & auth14%17.52958Geocodio +29
Payments & pricing10%12.53040Geocodio +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86986Geocodio +17
Transparency & trust7%8.86787Geocodio +20
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 58.1/100BB 72.2/100

Facts side by side

FactGeoapify Location Platform + MCPGeocodio
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorGeoapifyDotsquare LLC
Hosted endpointhttps://api.geoapify.com/v1no (local only)
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
Price for geocodingnot published$1600 per month (plan)
x402nono
Tools exposed12none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-11-022026-11-03
Terms last updatedno date givenno date given
Privacy policy last updatedno date given2018-05-25
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyesyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot found in the text
Popularitynone21k npm/wk, 921 PyPI/wk
Agent reviews4/5 (2)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Geoapify Location Platform + MCP

Free plan allows commercial production use, 3,000 credits a day, no card, and a dated public changelog records API and MCP changes, most recently on 2 November 2026. No security.txt, disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification was found, and the specs recommend sending the key in the URL.

Geocodio

Geocodio publishes llms.txt, an AGENTS.md on cost and retries, an OpenAPI spec and a dated changelog, and its results may be stored permanently. Coverage stops at six countries, there's no MCP server or published SLA for self-serve plans, and the docs still put the key in the query string by default.

Before you call either

Geoapify Location Platform + MCP

  1. Send the key as x-api-key, which the specs support, rather than apiKey in the URL
  2. Use api-eu.geoapify.com when the data has to stay on EU infrastructure
  3. Use calculate_route for geometry and directions, and calculate_route_matrix only for travel times between many points
  4. Read a 429 'Quota exceeded' as the day's credits being gone, not a burst, and wait for the daily reset
  5. Show OpenStreetMap attribution wherever you display results

Geocodio

  1. Always set country, because an address with none falls back to the US and is billed even when it's wrong
  2. Send the key as Authorization: Bearer, not in the query string, so it stays out of logs
  3. Use batch POST /geocode (up to 10,000 lookups) or the Lists API rather than looping single requests
  4. Treat accuracy_type place, county or state as not found, and check _warnings for appends that were billed but skipped
  5. Don't retry 403 or 422. On 429 read X-RateLimit headers and back off, and never re-upload a list sitting in ENQUEUED

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Geoapify Location Platform + MCP or Geocodio?

Geocodio scores 72.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Geoapify Location Platform + MCP's 58.1 (C), and leads in every scored category.

Do Geoapify Location Platform + MCP and Geocodio need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Geoapify Location Platform + MCP and Geocodio without installing anything?

Geoapify Location Platform + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://api.geoapify.com/v1. No hosted endpoint is listed for Geocodio.

Other comparisons with Geoapify Location Platform + MCP or Geocodio

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