# Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs Woosmap

> Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP scores 75.4 (BB) to Woosmap's 59.4 (C) for geocoding. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-woosmap
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-woosmap.md (~5,650 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP scores 75.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Woosmap's 59.4 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do geocoding.

- Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP: grade BB, 75.4/100, rank #63 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-maps-platform.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/google-maps-platform.json
- Woosmap: grade C, 59.4/100, rank #707 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/woosmap.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/woosmap.json
- Best maps, geocoding and places APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/maps/index.md
- All 153 maps comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/maps/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP (BB)

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 78
- Agent ergonomics, 85 against 76
- Security & auth, 73 against 43
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 80 against 26
- Transparency & trust, 72 against 54

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: Free monthly caps beyond the prototyping Demo Key need a Cloud billing account with a payment method

### Woosmap (C)

Good for: Store locators, address autocomplete and distance for retail and logistics teams that keep their own location data in the platform, with an MCP server for agents.

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No public changelog or release notes for the APIs


## Why the edge

### Maintenance & community: Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +54

- 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.
- Woosmap (26): No dated API release, changelog or release note found. The newest dated activity we saw is the public woosmap-samples repository on 16 September 2026, which isn't an API release (10). No dated changes to count in the last 90 days (0). Support by email and a support centre, with no public changelog (5). Official JavaScript, iOS and Android SDKs exist, but we couldn't check their versions because the GitHub API was rate-limited and two SDK repository names didn't resolve; the MCP server isn't in the official MCP registry (8). The samples carry tests, per the rate-limits page (3). 10+0+5+8+3 = 26.

### Security & auth: Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +30

- 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.
- Woosmap (43): Public keys are read-only and must carry a domain or IP restriction. Private keys are read-only or read and write (fixed at creation), restricted by IP, iOS or Android, and can go in an X-Api-Key header. Less 10 because `private_key` in the query string is a documented option and the default in the spec (17). Read-only keys and the read/write split give least privilege; no confirmation step on dataset deletes was found (16). find_nearby and get_place_details return public POI data, ratings and opening hours, with no prompt-injection guidance (7). Console usage per project wasn't checked (3). www.woosmap.com/.well-known/security.txt returns 404, and we found no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification (0). 17+16+7+3+0 = 43.

### Transparency & trust: Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +18

- 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).
- Woosmap (54): Editorial half only. Closed service under online terms that name WOOSMAP SAS of Montpellier and the Commercial Court of Paris (15). The privacy policy covers website visitors only, and we found no statement on how long API request data is kept (5). The pricing page says the Address API is 'being deprecated for Pro Plan subscriptions', with no date (5). The legal notice says the site is hosted by Amazon Web Services; no sub-processor list or data location for the APIs was found (6). 15+5+5+6 = 31.

### Reliability: Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +12

- Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP (90): Google Cloud's status dashboard has a Maps Platform section with per-product incident history and a JSON feed, re-read on 1 November (20). The 26 July traffic-data incident has left the 90-day window (cause time). Four incidents since 3 August. Directions, Distance Matrix and Routes had elevated errors and latency from 18:56 to 20:40 UTC on 19 October. Reverse-geocoding requests to the Geocoding API resolved to an address in Vietnam from 02:40 to 04:42 UTC on 23 October, which Google labels an outage, and some street results came back with incomplete or wrongly localised addresses from 25 October, resolved by 30 October with data restoration still running. A Maps SDK for Android crash on some Adreno GPUs on 28 September isn't on this listing's surfaces. Each touches one product, one group of products or some requests, so each is partial and read as minor, as this run reads Google's dashboard on google-speech-to-text and google-cloud-document-ai (20). Grounding Lite (now Maps Experience agent tools) quotas are 300 queries a minute per project for search, weather and routes and 600 for the resolvers, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (15). The Geocoding best-practice page gives exponential backoff with a worked example, 100 ms doubling to 5 s, and says which status codes to retry, per the 1 October check (15). A 99.9 per cent monthly SLA with 10, 25 and 50 per cent credits, re-read on 1 November (10). Places (New), Routes and the agent tools' Essentials SKU are GA; the Pro SKU is in Restricted GA (10). 20 + 20 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 10 = 90.
- Woosmap (78): Hosted lines. Atlassian Statuspage at status.woosmap.com with seven components (Localities, Store Search, Geolocation, Distance, Address, Map and Indoor APIs) (20). The status home page lists no incidents from 23 October to 6 November 2026. The full history page loads by script and the site's robots.txt disallows /api/, so the rest of the 90 days wasn't read and the line is held between the unreadable and minor tiers (10). Each endpoint's reference states its own rate limit, such as 50 a second, shared by a project's keys (15). Every response carries RateLimit-Policy and RateLimit headers, and the rate-limits page says to wait `t` seconds after a 429, retry at most three times and back off 1, 2 and 4 seconds when the header is missing, with sample code (15). A 99.9% SLA on the Enterprise plan per the pricing page; we didn't read its terms (8). GA (10). 20+10+15+15+8+10 = 78.

### Payments & pricing: Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +10

- 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.
- Woosmap (30): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plans and per-API tier breakpoints are public, but per-request prices sit in a script-driven calculator we couldn't read, so plan-only credit (10). Free plan up to 10,000 requests a month with 'No Credit Card Required' (20). A person signs up and creates a key in the console (0). 0+10+20+0 = 30.

### Agent ergonomics: Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +9

- 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).
- Woosmap (76): API reading, with the hosted MCP server's nine tools as a second surface. Localities and Stores responses can be narrowed by type, components and fields, and the MCP set is small (20). Store search takes query filters, radius and paging, and the Distance Matrix has an async mode for large jobs (17). Documented error codes including 402 for billing and 429 with reset timing (17). Reads are safe to retry, but no idempotency key was found for the Datasets and Stores write endpoints, and the MCP docs don't mention tool annotations (10). Official JavaScript, iOS and Android SDKs and samples in Python and JavaScript, with few required parameters (12). 20+17+17+10+12 = 76.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP | Woosmap | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 90 | 78 | Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 81 | Woosmap +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 76 | Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 73 | 43 | Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +30 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 30 | Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 26 | Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +54 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 54 | Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP +18 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **75.4 · BB** | **59.4 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP | Woosmap |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Google | WOOSMAP SAS |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://maps.googleapis.com` | `https://api.woosmap.com/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| Price for geocoding | $5 per 1,000 requests | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (client libraries) | none |
| Tools exposed | 5 | 9 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-23 | none |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-26 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2024-07-01 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 5k stars, 1.2M npm/wk, 748k PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP

- +7.2 on 1 November 2026 (B to BB): product, new evidence, time
- -0.1 on 28 October 2026: correction
- +0.1 on 27 October 2026: checklist

### Woosmap

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP.** Field masks size every Places and Routes response, a 99.9 per cent SLA covers the core services, and a Maps Demo Key allows prototyping without billing. Production use needs a Cloud billing account set up by a person, classic Geocoding takes the key in the URL, and the terms bar storing coordinates beyond 30 days.

**Woosmap.** Woosmap publishes an OpenAPI 3.1 spec, llms.txt with Markdown pages, per-endpoint rate limits and 429 retry rules, plus a hosted nine-tool MCP server. No changelog, security.txt, API data retention statement or readable per-request price was found, and private keys can travel in the query string.

## Before you call either

### Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP

1. Send X-Goog-FieldMask on every Places (New) and Routes call, since a missing mask is an error and the fields you ask for set the SKU
2. Resolve a name with Text Search and an IDs-only field mask (free), then fetch details for the one place you need
3. Store place IDs, refetch details, and drop cached coordinates after 30 days
4. Leave the agent tools' Pro options (`include_extended_details`, `page_size` above 5, traffic-aware routing) unset unless asked, since allowlisted projects pay $14 per 1,000 for them
5. Put Google Maps attribution directly after any answer grounded in the agent tools' results

### Woosmap

1. Send the private key in the X-Api-Key header, not the private_key query parameter
2. Use a read-only private key for the MCP server unless the task writes stores or datasets
3. On 429 wait the `t` seconds from the RateLimit header, retry at most three times, and pause batches when `r` reaches 0
4. Use find_stores_nearby for the customer's own locations and find_nearby for public POIs
5. Read endpoint parameters from the /api-reference/ Markdown pages, which llms.txt marks as authoritative

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP or Woosmap?

Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP scores 75.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Woosmap's 59.4 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP and Woosmap need an API key?

Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Woosmap needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP and Woosmap without installing anything?

Yes. Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://maps.googleapis.com and Woosmap at https://api.woosmap.com/mcp.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-woosmap.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-woosmap.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "google-maps-platform", "b": "woosmap"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare google-maps-platform woosmap`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/google-maps-platform.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/woosmap.json

## Other comparisons with Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP or Woosmap

- [Amazon Location Service vs Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-google-maps-platform.md)
- [Amazon Location Service vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-woosmap.md)
- [ArcGIS Location Platform vs Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcgis-vs-google-maps-platform.md)
- [ArcGIS Location Platform vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcgis-vs-woosmap.md)
- [Azure Maps vs Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-maps-vs-google-maps-platform.md)
- [Azure Maps vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-maps-vs-woosmap.md)
- [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 Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geoapify-vs-woosmap.md)
- [Geocodio vs Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-google-maps-platform.md)
- [Geocodio vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-woosmap.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs HERE Location Services](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-here-location-services.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs LocationIQ](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-locationiq.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs Mapbox APIs + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-mapbox.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs MapQuest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-mapquest.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs MapTiler Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-maptiler.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs NextBillion.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-nextbillion.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs Nominatim](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-nominatim.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs OpenCage Geocoding API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-opencage.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-radar.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs Stadia Maps](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-stadia-maps.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs TomTom Maps APIs + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-tomtom.md)
- [HERE Location Services vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/here-location-services-vs-woosmap.md)
- [LocationIQ vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/locationiq-vs-woosmap.md)
- [Mapbox APIs + MCP vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapbox-vs-woosmap.md)
- [MapQuest vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapquest-vs-woosmap.md)
- [MapTiler Cloud vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/maptiler-vs-woosmap.md)
- [Nominatim vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-woosmap.md)
- [OpenCage Geocoding API vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opencage-vs-woosmap.md)
- [Radar vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/radar-vs-woosmap.md)
- [Stadia Maps vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/stadia-maps-vs-woosmap.md)
- [TomTom Maps APIs + MCP vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tomtom-vs-woosmap.md)
- [NextBillion.ai vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nextbillion-vs-woosmap.md)

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