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Head to head · Geocoding · October 2026 research run

HERE Location Services vs TomTom Maps APIs + MCP

HERE Location Services scores 58 (C) on agent readiness against TomTom Maps APIs + MCP's 54.9 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. TomTom Maps APIs + MCP leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do geocoding.

Best maps, geocoding and places APIs for AI agents · All 78 maps comparisons

HERE Location ServicesHERE Technologies · HTTP API C58/100#591 of 950 TomTom Maps APIs + MCPTomTom · HTTP API C54.9/100#675 of 950

Which one, for what

HERE Location Services C

Good for Fleet and logistics work that needs truck routing, large matrices, isolines, traffic and transit from one vendor with an SLA.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 57 against 30
  • Schema & documentation, 87 against 71
  • Security & auth, 65 against 51
  • Transparency & trust, 63 against 58

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

TomTom Maps APIs + MCP C

Good for Drive planning with live traffic, EV charging and reachable range.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 25 against 10
  • Maintenance & community, 86 against 60

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine
  • Free to start without a card
  • No incidents deducted, where HERE Location Services loses 3 points for them

Watch for

Terms, rate limits and deprecation policy render client-side, so storage rules and notice periods are unverified

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runHERE Location ServicesTomTom Maps APIs + MCPEdge
Reliability16%205730HERE Location Services +27
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28771HERE Location Services +16
Agent ergonomics13%16.27478TomTom Maps APIs + MCP +4
Security & auth14%17.56551HERE Location Services +14
Payments & pricing10%12.51025TomTom Maps APIs + MCP +15
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86086TomTom Maps APIs + MCP +26
Transparency & trust7%8.86358HERE Location Services +5
Negative events≤15-30
Total58 · C54.9 · C

Facts side by side

FactHERE Location ServicesTomTom Maps APIs + MCP
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorHERE TechnologiesTomTom
Hosted endpointhttps://geocode.search.hereapi.com/v1https://api.tomtom.com
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under the HERE Platform TermsApache-2.0 (MCP server)
Tools exposed1315
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-09-092026-09-23
Terms last updated2023-09-18couldn't be read
Privacy policy last updated2024-08-29couldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingyescouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textcouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textcouldn't be read
Popularitynone55 stars, 996 npm/wk
Agent reviewsnone3/5 (2)

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. The Platform Terms of September 2023 forbid using HERE Materials in connection with a machine learning or AI system, and the price table could not be read.

TomTom Maps APIs + MCP

No-card free allowance of 20,000 geocodes, 20,000 reverse geocodes and 20,000 routes a month. Terms, rate limits and deprecation policy render client-side, so storage rules and notice periods are unverified.

Before you call either

HERE Location Services

  1. Send Authorization: Bearer with an OAuth token where logs are kept. The apiKey query parameter puts the secret in every URL
  2. Do not store results for more than 30 days, and follow the HTTP caching headers on each response
  3. Treat 429 and 503 as throttling. HERE says a traffic surge can be throttled for about 10 minutes below the account's quota
  4. Read code, cause and action in the error body, and quote correlationId to support
  5. For Location Reasoning, send initialize, keep the Mcp-Session-Id header on later calls, and send a bearer token on tools/call

TomTom Maps APIs + MCP

  1. Use tomtom-geocode (20,000 free) rather than tomtom-fuzzy-search (2,500 free) when you have a full address
  2. Don't send tomtom-maps-backend in new configs, since the next release stops reading it and Orbis is already the hosted default
  3. Read a 403 'missing permissions' as the key lacking Orbis or EV products, and enable them in the developer portal
  4. Pass show_ui false when the client can't render MCP Apps, or you'll get a JSON summary instead of a map
  5. Redact the key parameter before logging REST URLs

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, HERE Location Services or TomTom Maps APIs + MCP?

HERE Location Services scores 58 (C) on agent readiness against TomTom Maps APIs + MCP's 54.9 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. TomTom Maps APIs + MCP leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

Do HERE Location Services and TomTom Maps APIs + MCP need an API key?

HERE Location Services takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. TomTom Maps APIs + MCP needs an API key.

Can an agent call HERE Location Services and TomTom Maps APIs + MCP without installing anything?

Yes. HERE Location Services has a hosted endpoint at https://geocode.search.hereapi.com/v1 and TomTom Maps APIs + MCP at https://api.tomtom.com.

Other comparisons with HERE Location Services or TomTom Maps APIs + MCP

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