# Geocodio vs MapQuest (slim)

> Geocodio scores 72.2 (BB) to MapQuest's 35.4 (F) for geocoding. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-mapquest.md (~4,800 tokens) · this version ~2,830 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-mapquest.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-mapquest
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Geocodio scores 72.2 (BB) on agent readiness against MapQuest's 35.4 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do geocoding.

- Geocodio: BB 72.2, rank #138 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/geocodio.min.md
- MapQuest: F 35.4, rank #1395 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mapquest.min.md
- Geocodio, good 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 23; Schema & documentation, 92 against 47; Agent ergonomics, 80 against 60; Security & auth, 58 against 28; Payments & pricing, 40 against 30; Maintenance & community, 86 against 23; Transparency & trust, 87 against 31. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Free to start without a card.
- MapQuest, good for An agent that needs US-centred geocoding, routing with truck profiles, traffic and place search behind one account, with an MCP server ready to connect. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install.

| Category | Geocodio | MapQuest |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 70 | 23 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 92 | 47 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 80 | 60 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 58 | 28 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 30 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 86 | 23 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 87 | 31 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Geocodio | MapQuest |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Dotsquare LLC | MapQuest (System1) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://www.mapquestapi.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Price for geocoding | $1600 per month (plan) | not published |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service. No API terms were found published without a login |
| Last release | 2026-11-03 | 2026-07-16 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2018-05-25 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Popularity | 21k npm/wk, 921 PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.8/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, Geocodio +63: 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.); MapQuest 23 (The newest dated product changes are two blog announcements on 16 July 2026 (the Geolocation API and a 10,000 by 10,000 async route matrix), 84 days before the check (20). Two dated entries in 90 days. The MCP guide's version 1.2 is dated 7 July 2026, 93 days before (0). No changelog. Support is by email, untested (3). The MCP registry returns no server for 'mapquest', and the only current SDKs are browser libraries with no dated releases found (0). No package to judge (0).)
- Transparency & trust, Geocodio +56: 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.); MapQuest 31 (Closed service. The only terms linked are System1's website terms of 26 February 2021, which allow personal, non-commercial use and do not mention the APIs. The plans page states the storage rule (5). The System1 group privacy policy of 5 July 2023 gives no retention periods and describes sale and sharing of personal information, while the plans page says 'we don't collect or sell user data' (8). No deprecation policy. Dated notices exist from 2018 only (5). The policy names categories of service providers, with no list or locations. The geocoding docs name TomTom for international queries (3).)
- Reliability, Geocodio +47: 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.); MapQuest 23 (Graded as a hosted service. No status page is linked from the developer site, the docs or the plans page (0). With no page there is no readable incident history (5). The reference marks endpoints 'Rate Limited Yes' and gives functional maximums (100 locations a batch, 50 a route, 25 a matrix) but no request-rate numbers (5). No 429, Retry-After or backoff guidance found (0). The Enterprise plan lists a service-level agreement, with no text published (3). The REST API is generally available and the MCP page calls the server production-ready (10).)
- Schema & documentation, Geocodio +45: 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.); MapQuest 47 (`https://developer.mapquest.com/openapi.json` describes the marketing site and has an empty `paths` object, so the product APIs have no machine-readable contract. The MCP tool definitions sit behind OAuth and were not read (0). `llms.txt` indexes every API with a one-line purpose (10). The reference states each endpoint's purpose and each parameter's effect, without when-not-to-use guidance (12). Parameter tables give ranges and allowed values in prose (8). Example requests and responses on each page, and status-code pages per API (12). Versions in the path (v1, v2, v4, v5) but no changelog (5).)
- Security & auth, Geocodio +30: 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.); MapQuest 28 (REST uses API keys, several per account, created in the dashboard or by API. The MCP server uses OAuth with one scope, `mcp:tools`. That earns 20, less 10 because the `key` query parameter is the documented way to send the secret (10). No key scopes, referrer or IP restrictions, or read-only mode found in the docs (3). Place and address text is returned with no prompt-injection guidance (7). The usage endpoint reports transactions by key, service and hour (8). No security.txt, disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification found (0).)
- Agent ergonomics, Geocodio +20: Geocodio 80 (API reading. `limit`, opt-in `fields` appends and `stable_address_key` re-lookups size responses and cost, and results are ordered best first (20). Batches of 10,000 lookups, Lists for 10 million, distance filters (max_distance, max_results, order_by) and paginated list listings (17). Codes 403, 422, 429 and 500 each carry a documented meaning and retry rule, error bodies link a help page, and `_warnings` reports ignored parameters (18). Geocoding reads are safe to retry, but there's no idempotency key on batch or list creation and AGENTS.md says a retried request is billed again (10). One required parameter on a single geocode, and official libraries for Python, Node, PHP and Ruby plus a CLI with `--agent` output (15). 20+17+18+10+15 = 80.); MapQuest 60 (The MCP page names 13 tools. Their definitions were not read, so context cost is scored from the count and from REST controls such as `maxResults`, `thumbMaps=false` and `outFormat` (15). Place search pages with `pageSize` 1 to 50 and filters by category, circle, bounding box or corridor (16). Status codes are documented, with geocoding and directions errors carried in the response body and problem+json on the Account API (12). Most calls read and are safe to retry. Data Manager writes have no idempotency key, and MCP annotations were not read (10). Geocoding needs only `key` and `location`. The only current SDKs are browser libraries (7).)