# Geoapify Location Platform + MCP vs LocationIQ

> LocationIQ has a score of 60.6 (C) against Geoapify Location Platform + MCP's 55.5 (C). Both do geo geocode. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 58 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-05

LocationIQ has a score of 60.6 (C) against Geoapify Location Platform + MCP's 55.5 (C). Both do geo geocode. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 58 points.

- Geoapify Location Platform + MCP: grade C, 55.5/100, rank #314 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/geoapify.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/geoapify.json
- LocationIQ: grade C, 60.6/100, rank #243 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/locationiq.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/locationiq.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Geoapify Location Platform + MCP for maintenance & community (+58).

Pick LocationIQ for reliability (+23), security & auth (+26).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Geoapify Location Platform + MCP | LocationIQ | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 83 | LocationIQ +23 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 78 | LocationIQ +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 74 | LocationIQ +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 29 | 55 | LocationIQ +26 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 30 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 3 | Geoapify Location Platform + MCP +58 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 65 | LocationIQ +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **55.5 · C** | **60.6 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Geoapify Location Platform + MCP | LocationIQ |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Geoapify | LocationIQ (Unwired Labs) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.geoapify.com/v1` | `https://us1.locationiq.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | none |
| Tools exposed | 11 | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | none | none |
| Popularity | none | none |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 4.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Geoapify Location Platform + MCP.** Free plan allows commercial production use, 3,000 credits a day, no card. No security.txt, disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification found.

**LocationIQ.** 5,000 free requests a day with no card, commercial use allowed with a link back. No changelog, release notes or blog.

## 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

### LocationIQ

1. Use eu1.locationiq.com for European users or data
2. Add format=json and limit=1 to keep responses small
3. On 429 Rate Limited Second wait a second, on Rate Limited Day stop until the next day
4. Call /balance before a large batch to see what's left of the day's quota
5. Redact the key parameter before logging request URLs

## Other comparisons with Geoapify Location Platform + MCP or LocationIQ

- [Geoapify Location Platform + MCP vs Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geoapify-vs-google-maps-platform.md)
- [Geoapify Location Platform + MCP vs Mapbox APIs + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geoapify-vs-mapbox.md)
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- [Geoapify Location Platform + MCP vs TomTom Maps APIs + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geoapify-vs-tomtom.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs LocationIQ](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-locationiq.md)
- [LocationIQ vs Mapbox APIs + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/locationiq-vs-mapbox.md)
- [LocationIQ vs OpenCage Geocoding API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/locationiq-vs-opencage.md)
- [LocationIQ vs Stadia Maps](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/locationiq-vs-stadia-maps.md)
- [LocationIQ vs TomTom Maps APIs + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/locationiq-vs-tomtom.md)