# Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs Nominatim (slim)

> Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP scores 75.4 (BB) to Nominatim's 63.5 (B) for geocoding. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-nominatim.md (~5,400 tokens) · this version ~2,930 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-nominatim.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-nominatim
- 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
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Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP scores 75.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Nominatim's 63.5 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Nominatim leads on payments & pricing. Both do geocoding.

- Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP: BB 75.4, rank #63 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-maps-platform.min.md
- Nominatim: B 63.5, rank #513 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nominatim.min.md
- Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP, good for Best when the answer has to match what the user sees in Google Maps, for place details, opening hours and reviews. Ahead on Reliability, 90 against 82; Schema & documentation, 77 against 51; Agent ergonomics, 85 against 75; Security & auth, 73 against 50; Maintenance & community, 80 against 60; Transparency & trust, 72 against 59. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install.
- Nominatim, good for Self-hosted worldwide geocoding from OpenStreetMap data with no per-call cost or storage limits beyond ODbL. Ahead on Payments & pricing, 60 against 40. Also No key needed to call it; Open source.

| Category | Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP | Nominatim |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 90 | 82 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 77 | 51 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 85 | 75 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 73 | 50 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 80 | 60 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 72 | 59 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP | Nominatim |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Google | Nominatim project (osm-search) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://maps.googleapis.com` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Free |
| Price for geocoding | $5 per 1,000 requests | free |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (client libraries) | GPL-3.0-or-later |
| Tools exposed | 5 | none |
| Last release | 2026-10-23 | 2026-10-14 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-26 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 5k stars, 1.2M npm/wk, 748k PyPI/wk | 2.1k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | none |

Why the edge:
- Schema & documentation, Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +26: Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP 77 (No OpenAPI, but the Places v1, Routes v2, Geocode, Weather and Isochrones contracts are public protobuf definitions in googleapis/googleapis (25). developers.google.com/maps/llms.txt returns 404 and we found no Markdown docs for agents (0). The REST reference explains each field and which SKU a field triggers. We couldn't read the Grounding Lite tool definitions, since the server is closed (12). Enums, required fields and field masks in the protos (13). Request and response examples on each method page, and documented status codes for Geocoding (12). Versioned paths (places v1, routes v2), dated release notes and a deprecations page (15).); Nominatim 51 (No OpenAPI or machine-readable contract (0). nominatim.org/llms.txt returns 404, and the manual is HTML, though its Markdown sources sit in the repository's docs folder (0). The API reference explains each endpoint and parameter and when not to use one, such as the details endpoint being for debugging (14). Types, enums and limits are documented, such as format, layer and limit (at most 40), but there's no schema to validate against (12). Example queries and outputs per endpoint, with errors described in prose (10). A versioned manual per release, a ChangeLog and a migration guide (15). 0+0+14+12+10+15 = 51.)
- Security & auth, Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +23: Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP 73 (API keys with API restrictions and IP restrictions, documented rotation with an overlap window, and OAuth 2.0 with per-method scopes (such as maps-platform.places.textsearch in the Places discovery document) and the maps-platform.mapstools scope for the agent tools, which earns 30. Less 10 because a credential can travel in the URL. Classic Geocoding and Static Maps take the key as the `key` query parameter, and on 1 November Places API (New) answered a made-up `?key=` with API_KEY_INVALID and a made-up `?access_token=` with 401 invalid credentials (not missing), with both listed as query parameters in its discovery document. That's one deduction, the same test and reading as google-weather-api and gmail-api (20). A key can be restricted to the APIs it needs, and no agent-facing call writes anything (16). Places and the agent tools return reviews and AI-generated place summaries, which are third-party text, and we found no prompt-injection guidance (5). Cloud Monitoring's Metrics Explorer shows usage per key and per API (12). google.com's security.txt is valid to 1 April 2030 and names the vulnerability reward programme, and the Maps Platform trust centre lists ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and 27017, SOC 2 and SOC 3, both read on 1 November. Read as Google's hosted APIs whose product a certification names are read in this run (gmail-api, google-drive-api, google-cloud-document-ai, google-model-armor, google-speech-to-text) (20). 20 + 16 + 5 + 12 + 20 = 73.); Nominatim 50 (The server has no authentication of its own; an operator puts it behind their own proxy. The public instance takes no key and identifies callers by User-Agent or Referer (5). Every endpoint reads, so there's nothing to approve (18). Results are OpenStreetMap names and tags, community-edited text, with no prompt-injection guidance (7). Query logging to a file is available through NOMINATIM_LOG_FILE and off by default (8). SECURITY.md gives security@nominatim.org, an acknowledgement within 3 work days, a disclosure process and two years of security updates per release. No bug bounty (12). 5+18+7+8+12 = 50.)
- Payments & pricing, Nominatim +20: Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP 40 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-1,000 prices for every SKU published without login, re-read on 1 November (20). Monthly free caps per SKU (10,000 Essentials, 5,000 Pro, 1,000 Enterprise) need a Cloud billing account, but the Maps Demo Key lets a personal Google account prototype with Places API (New), Geocoding API v4, Compute Routes, Weather and the agent tools without billing information, within daily limits, so a trial with no card exists (20). A person still signs in to a Google account and accepts terms in a browser before the first key exists (0). 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.); Nominatim 60 (Self-hosted rule. No payment protocol (0). Free software with nothing to buy (20 + 20 + 20). The public instance is also free and keyless, within its usage policy. 0+20+20+20 = 60.)
- Maintenance & community, Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +20: Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP 80 (Newest dated API change is the Routes API note of 23 October 2026 on route tokens passed to the Navigation SDK, 9 days before this check (30). Three dated release-note entries in the 90 days from 3 August, Places API (New) on 6 August (entrances and navigation points), Geocoding API on 13 October (entrance display names and Experimental parking facilities) and Routes API on 23 October. The listed googlemaps Python client and Node services library tagged nothing in the window (20). Dated release notes, emailed change notices and a paid support route (12). Current generated clients such as @googlemaps/places, but the listed Python library googlemaps last tagged v4.10.0 on 26 January 2023 and its README now sends new APIs to the Cloud client libraries, and the Node services library last tagged v3.4.2 on 6 July 2025 (12). The generated clients are built in googleapis' CI. The older libraries say they sit outside the SLA and deprecation policy (6). 30 + 20 + 12 + 12 + 6 = 80.); Nominatim 60 (Release 5.3.3 on 14 October 2026, 23 days before this check (30). Only one release in the 90 days from 8 August, against 106 commits on the default branch; commits aren't counted as releases (0). Commits from the lead maintainer and seven or more contributors since August, but we couldn't read issue reply times (12). The nominatim-api Python library is current with the server (10). CI on every push, current PostgreSQL and Python versions (8). 30+0+12+10+8 = 60.)
- Transparency & trust, Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +13: Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP 72 (Closed service with long, specific terms that were last modified 26 August 2026, and Apache-2.0 client libraries (18). The service terms spell out caching (coordinates 30 days, place IDs exempt, a per-user geocode cache allowed) and Grounding Lite says Maps content isn't cached, stored or used to improve the model. The privacy policy is Google's general one (22). A 12-month deprecation policy and a deprecations page with dates, such as the Heatmap Layer deprecated May 2025 and gone May 2026 (20). Separate EEA terms and regional contracting entities are disclosed. A Maps Platform subprocessor list wasn't at the URL we tried (5).); Nominatim 59 (Open source, GPL-3.0-or-later for the Python code, GPL-2.0 for other files and Apache-2.0 for the osm2pgsql Lua styles (30). A self-hosted server keeps data where the operator runs it. The public instance falls under the OSMF privacy policy and asks users not to send personal data. We didn't read the OSMF policy itself (20). SECURITY.md lists the end of security support for each release line with dates, and a migration guide covers each version (16). No telemetry found in the settings, and request logging is opt-in (15). 30+20+16+15 = 81.)
- Agent ergonomics, Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +10: Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP 85 (Grounding Lite has three tools plus two experimental resolvers, and the REST APIs size their responses with X-Goog-FieldMask, which also sets the price (25). pageSize and pageToken on Text Search, includedTypes, locationBias and locationRestriction (20). google.rpc status codes with messages, and Geocoding's OK, UNKNOWN_ERROR, OVER_QUERY_LIMIT and INVALID_REQUEST split into retryable and not (16). Every agent-facing call is a read and the backoff guidance is explicit. We couldn't check MCP annotations on the closed server (14). Official generated clients in many languages, such as @googlemaps/places 3.0.1 on npm, but a missing field mask on Places (New) or Routes is an error rather than a default, which costs a turn (10).); Nominatim 75 (API reading. limit, addressdetails, extratags, namedetails and the polygon options size responses, and geocodejson, geojson and jsonv2 formats are available (22). countrycodes, viewbox, bounded, layer, featureType and exclude_place_ids filter results, the last one standing in for pagination (18). Bad parameters return an error rather than a silent default in current versions, but there's no error code reference (12). Every endpoint reads and is safe to retry (15). Few required parameters, and the Python library exposes the same search API in-process, but there are no other official clients (8). 22+18+12+15+8 = 75.)