Head to head · Geocoding · October 2026 research run
HERE Location Services vs MapTiler Cloud
MapTiler Cloud scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against HERE Location Services's 58.4 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. HERE Location Services leads on reliability, schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do geocoding.
Best maps, geocoding and places APIs for AI agents · All 153 maps comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Fleet and logistics work that needs truck routing, large matrices, isolines, traffic and transit from one vendor with an SLA.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 55 against 43
- Schema & documentation, 89 against 79
- Agent ergonomics, 93 against 70
Also in its favour
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
Watch for
Platform Terms section f forbids using HERE Materials in connection with a machine learning or AI system, generative AI included. This matters before any probe is run
Best for Map tiles, static maps and worldwide geocoding with storable results for apps that also show a map, with EU data residency.
Ahead on
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 0
- Maintenance & community, 70 against 45
- Transparency & trust, 80 against 63
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
- No incidents deducted, where HERE Location Services loses 3 points for them
Watch for
The API key is always sent as a query parameter
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.
Payments & pricing MapTiler Cloud +40
HERE Location Services 0
Readings per the 9 October check, not re-read on 4 November (HERE's hosts paused). No x402, MPP or L402 was found in the docs index or the terms (0). The Base Plan price page is public, but its table is drawn by script and showed no prices to our reader, so per-request prices score as absent, a limit of our reading and not a finding that prices are hidden (0). HERE's docs say a new organisation can get started for free, but whether a card is asked for was not established, so the free-tier line can't be credited (0; the 10 carried isn't a checklist value). Sign-up is a browser flow with email verification (0). Support plans are priced in public, from $50 a month for the Developer plan. 0+0+0+0 = 0.
MapTiler Cloud 40
No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-1,000 prices for requests ($0.15) and sessions ($2.50) public without login (20). Free plan with no card, though only for testing and non-commercial use (20). Signup is a browser flow (0). 0+20+20+0 = 40.
Maintenance & community MapTiler Cloud +25
HERE Location Services 45
HERE's changelogs sit on docs.here.com, paused under the acceptable use policy, so entries after 9 October are unread. On the 9 October reading the newest dated entries are Matrix Routing 8.49.0 on 9 September 2026 (a documentation change) and Routing 8.162.0 on 7 September 2026, 58 days before this check (20). From 6 August only Routing 8.161.0 (11 August) and 8.162.0 (7 September) fall in the window, with the Matrix documentation change at half, 2.5 in all and short of three (0, cause time; 8.160.0 of 16 July has left the window). Changelogs are public for each API, and paid support plans state response times from 72 hours down to 4 (10 of 15). HERE's GitHub repositories, read as a third-party host, show the HERE SDK for Android, iOS and Flutter current, with example apps tagged for releases 4.27.2.0 (17 August), 4.27.3.0 (3 September), 4.28.0.0 (1 October) and 4.28.1.0 (2 November 2026), and their search and routing engines are the SDKs the ergonomics note credits. The Python client for the REST APIs has carried a deprecation notice since 5 September 2023. These SDK releases aren't counted on the release lines, because their release notes sit on HERE's paused pages and nothing read shows them changing the location services (15; the 5 carried isn't a checklist value). Package health isn't visible for a closed service, and the SDK examples repository has no CI workflow (0; the 5 carried isn't a checklist value). 20+0+10+15+0 = 45.
MapTiler Cloud 70
@maptiler/client 3.1.0 and @maptiler/sdk 4.2.0 on 2 October 2026, 35 days before this check, with the agent skill updated on 21 October (20). Platform updates entries for August (EU endpoint, key security) and September 2026 (terrain blending) plus the two October releases (20). A Discord community and support answered on a best-effort basis within two business days, per the Cloud terms. We didn't read GitHub issues (10). Official JavaScript client and SDK current, no Python client (12). The SDK repository runs unit and end-to-end tests in CI; we didn't check results (8). 20+20+10+12+8 = 70.
Agent ergonomics HERE Location Services +23
HERE Location Services 93
All readings per the 9 October check, not re-read on 4 November (HERE's hosts paused). limit sizes geocoding responses (1 to 100, default 20), and show and return parameters add optional blocks only when asked for. The MCP server lists 13 tools, two of them experimental, and passes cached route and isoline IDs between tools so geometry is not returned twice (18 of 25). Filters by country, result type, position and bounding area and a result limit are documented, with no offset or cursor paging for geocoding (20; the 15 carried isn't a checklist value, and filters with a size limit meet the line). Errors carry status, title, code, cause, action and correlationId, and the routing changelog names error codes such as E605502 (20; the 17 carried isn't a checklist value). The location calls are reads and safe to repeat (20; the 14 carried isn't a checklist value; MCP annotations were not read). A geocode needs only q and a credential, and HERE publishes SDKs in JavaScript, Android, iOS and Flutter, for maps rather than as REST clients (15; the 10 carried isn't a checklist value). 18+20+20+20+15 = 93.
MapTiler Cloud 70
API reading. limit, types, bbox, proximity, country, language and fuzzyMatch size geocoding results, and the batch endpoint takes up to 50 queries (20). Country, bbox and type filters, no pagination (geocoding rarely needs it) (16). Errors are documented as 400 and 403 with no recovery guidance (10). Every public API reads and is safe to retry (12). Few required parameters, but official clients are JavaScript and TypeScript only, plus native mobile SDKs (12). 20+16+10+12+12 = 70.
Transparency & trust MapTiler Cloud +17
HERE Location Services 63
All readings per the 9 October check, not re-read on 4 November (HERE's hosts paused). Closed service under public, dated terms. The HERE Platform Terms, effective 18 September 2023, name the contracting entity by region and govern the Base Plan (15 of 30). The terms say HERE analyses use of the platform and uses anonymised or aggregated findings to develop its products, and Essential Data Processing domains switch that off. The privacy policy of 29 August 2024 says it does not cover processing done on behalf of customers and gives no retention periods. The DPA is a PDF we did not read (14 of 30). The Product Lifecycle Policy gives six months' notice before discontinuation and 6 to 12 months for a deprecated feature, and changelogs mark deprecations with dates (20). No sub-processor list or data location was found on the pages read (3 of 20). Total 52.
MapTiler Cloud 80
Editorial half only. Closed service with general and Cloud-specific terms under Swiss law, and SDKs under BSD 3-Clause and the skill under MIT (20). The privacy policy covers account and payment data and says legal-claim data is kept up to 10 years, but says nothing about how long API request logs are kept (15). A dated deprecation page for v3 maps and migration guides, with no written notice period (12). Hosting with OVHcloud and Google Firebase, data mainly in Switzerland and the EEA, and an EU-only endpoint. Google Analytics, Firebase and FastSpring named in the privacy policy (17). 20+15+12+17 = 64.
Reliability HERE Location Services +12
HERE Location Services 55
Graded on the REST APIs (Geocoding and Search v7, Routing v8) with the hosted lines. HERE's acceptable use policy bars data mining and scraping of HERE Materials, websites included, so HERE's hosts were not requested on 4 November and the 9 October readings stand. HERE's docs describe a public status page at status.here.com/status with current status, a status history tab and scheduled maintenance (per the 9 October check, not re-read on 4 November) (20). The page was drawn by script on 9 October and is now paused, so the record from 6 August is unread (5). No rate limit with a number was found in the docs; the Base Plan limits sit on a price page drawn by script (0; the 5 carried isn't a checklist value). The Limits and Quotas page says an exceeded quota returns 429 or 503 and that a surge can be throttled for about 10 minutes, and the OpenAPI definition lists 429, with no Retry-After header or backoff guidance and only reads involved (per the 9 October check, not re-read on 4 November). Documented 429 handling without backoff guidance reads at the line's 10 (the 7 carried isn't a checklist value). Monthly availability targets of 99.9 per cent are published for Geocoding and Search v7 and Routing v8, with service credits for the Essential support plan and above (per the 9 October check, not re-read on 4 November) (10). Both APIs are in the Active lifecycle stage (10). 20+5+0+10+10+10 = 55.
MapTiler Cloud 43
Hosted lines. status.maptiler.com is a StatusCake public uptime report rather than a component incident page (15). Its data loads from app.statuscake.com, whose robots.txt answered with a redirect, so we didn't fetch it and read no history. That's our limit, not a finding, and the rubric gives 5 (5). Monthly request and session quotas are published per plan, but no per-second limit (5). No 429, Retry-After or backoff guidance found in the API reference, the OpenAPI spec or llms-full.txt (0). The pricing page lists a 99.9% SLA on the Custom plan, while the Cloud terms call availability best effort and point to a custom SLA (8). The public APIs are GA (10). 15+5+5+0+8+10 = 43.
Schema & documentation HERE Location Services +10
HERE Location Services 89
All readings per the 9 October check, not re-read on 4 November, because HERE's hosts are paused under its acceptable use policy. Each endpoint page has a Markdown twin holding an OpenAPI 3.0.0 definition, read for /geocode at version 7.157 (25). docs.here.com has a site llms.txt and one for each product and section (10). Endpoint descriptions state the purpose, and parameter descriptions are long, with ALPHA, BETA and RESTRICTED maturity tags. Little says when not to use an endpoint (14 of 20). Parameters are typed with 34 enums in the geocode definition, ranges such as limit 1 to 100 and defaults (13 of 15). 400, 405, 429 and 503 share an ErrorResponse schema, and the developer guide has code examples for each endpoint (12 of 15). The Routing v8 changelog is dated by entry up to 8.162.0 on 7 September 2026, with versioned APIs; the Geocoding and Search release notes are numbered without dates. The line lists 15, the nearest value to the 13 carried. The Location Reasoning tool schemas come only from tools/list and were not read. 25+10+14+13+12+15 = 89.
MapTiler Cloud 79
OpenAPI 3.1.0 document with 32 paths for the public APIs (25). llms.txt, llms-full.txt and a Markdown twin of every page (10). Each API page says what it's for and when to use the SDK instead (session billing), with little on when not to call it (13). Parameters are typed with defaults, such as limit (default 5 forward, 1 reverse) and a types enum, but bbox and proximity are strings (11). Examples on every endpoint, and the spec documents 400, 403, 404 and 414, without an error reference page (10). A dated platform updates page and a geocoding index changelog, but no version in the API path and the spec is version '1.0' (10). 25+10+13+11+10+10 = 79.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | HERE Location Services | MapTiler Cloud | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 55 | 43 | HERE Location Services +12 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 89 | 79 | HERE Location Services +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 93 | 70 | HERE Location Services +23 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 65 | 64 | HERE Location Services +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 0 | 40 | MapTiler Cloud +40 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 45 | 70 | MapTiler Cloud +25 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 63 | 80 | MapTiler Cloud +17 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| Total | C 58.4/100 | B 62.1/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | HERE Location Services | MapTiler Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | HERE Technologies | MapTiler AG |
| Hosted endpoint | https://geocode.search.hereapi.com/v1 | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the HERE Platform Terms | none |
| Tools exposed | 13 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-09 | 2026-10-02 |
| Terms last updated | 2023-09-18 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-08-29 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | 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 | yes |
| Popularity | none | 115k npm/wk |
How the scores have moved
MapTiler Cloud
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
HERE Location Services
Each endpoint page carries an OpenAPI 3.0 definition as Markdown, and HERE publishes 99.9 per cent monthly availability targets and a six-month deprecation policy. No numeric rate limit or retry guidance was found, prices were unreadable, and HERE's terms bar using its materials with an AI system and bar scraping, so its pages could not be re-read.
MapTiler Cloud
MapTiler Cloud has an OpenAPI 3.1 reference, llms.txt with Markdown pages, an agent skill and ISO 27001 certification, and allows geocoding results to be stored. The key always travels in the query string, there's no routing API, no documented rate limit or 429 handling, and the free plan excludes commercial use.
Before you call either
HERE Location Services
- Send
Authorization: Bearerwith an OAuth token where logs are kept. TheapiKeyquery parameter puts the secret in every URL - Do not store results for more than 30 days, and follow the HTTP caching headers on each response
- Treat 429 and 503 as throttling. HERE says a traffic surge can be throttled for about 10 minutes below the account's quota
- Read
code,causeandactionin the error body, and quotecorrelationIdto support - For Location Reasoning, send
initialize, keep theMcp-Session-Idheader on later calls, and send a bearer token ontools/call
MapTiler Cloud
- Restrict the key to an origin or User-Agent, or sign requests with a service token from a backend, since the key appears in every URL
- Use the batch geocoding path (up to 50 semicolon-separated queries) rather than one call per address
- Use api.maptiler.eu when the user's requests must stay in the EU
- Read docs pages as Markdown by appending .md, starting from https://docs.maptiler.com/llms.txt
- Don't cache map tiles server-side; the Cloud terms forbid it, though geocoding results may be stored with attribution
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, HERE Location Services or MapTiler Cloud?
MapTiler Cloud scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against HERE Location Services's 58.4 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. HERE Location Services leads on reliability, schema & documentation and agent ergonomics.
Do HERE Location Services and MapTiler Cloud need an API key?
HERE Location Services takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. MapTiler Cloud needs an API key.
Can an agent call HERE Location Services and MapTiler Cloud without installing anything?
HERE Location Services has a hosted endpoint at https://geocode.search.hereapi.com/v1. No hosted endpoint is listed for MapTiler Cloud.
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- LocationIQ vs MapTiler Cloud
- Mapbox APIs + MCP vs MapTiler Cloud
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- MapTiler Cloud vs Woosmap
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/here-location-services-vs-maptiler.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/here-location-services.json·/api/v1/tools/maptiler.json - From a terminal
anchor compare here-location-services maptiler(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "here-location-services", "b": "maptiler"}at/mcp, no key