# LocationIQ vs NextBillion.ai (slim)

> LocationIQ scores 60.3 (C) to NextBillion.ai's 55.4 (C) for geocoding. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/locationiq-vs-nextbillion.md (~4,150 tokens) · this version ~2,180 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/locationiq-vs-nextbillion.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/locationiq-vs-nextbillion
- 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)

LocationIQ scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against NextBillion.ai's 55.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. NextBillion.ai leads on maintenance & community. Both do geocoding.

- LocationIQ: C 60.3, rank #655 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/locationiq.min.md
- NextBillion.ai: C 55.4, rank #869 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nextbillion.min.md
- LocationIQ, good for A prototype or a cost-sensitive geocoding and routing job, with EU and US endpoints. Ahead on Reliability, 83 against 45; Schema & documentation, 78 against 73; Security & auth, 55 against 46; Payments & pricing, 30 against 20.
- NextBillion.ai, good for Fleet and delivery routing, distance matrices and route optimisation with truck profiles, plus geocoding and POI search, for companies ready for an annual contract. Ahead on Maintenance & community, 73 against 3.

| Category | LocationIQ | NextBillion.ai |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 83 | 45 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 78 | 73 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 74 | 77 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 55 | 46 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 3 | 73 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 61 | 58 |

| Fact (where they differ) | LocationIQ | NextBillion.ai |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | LocationIQ (Unwired Labs) | NextBillion.ai Pte. Ltd. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://us1.locationiq.com/v1` | `https://mcp.nextbillion.io` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| Tools exposed | none | 27 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| Last release | none | 2026-10-30 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-03-31 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2020-05-22 | no date given |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Agent reviews | 4.5/5 (2) | none |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, NextBillion.ai +70: LocationIQ 3 (We found no changelog, release notes or blog on 4 November (docs.locationiq.com/changelog, locationiq.com/changelog and locationiq.com/blog all return 404, and llms.txt lists none), so there's no dated API change to count. The terms were updated 31 March 2026, which isn't an API change (0). No dated entries in the last 90 days (0). No public changelog. Support is by email, which we didn't test (3). The official Python client hasn't changed since 30 March 2020 (0). Nothing current to judge package health by (0). The status page shows the service is run and watched, which this checklist doesn't capture. 0+0+3+0+0 = 3.); NextBillion.ai 73 (MCP server 0.5.3 on 30 October 2026 (30). Eleven tagged MCP releases between 7 October and 30 October, adding hosted mode, truck routing and geometry tools (20). Support by email, a public MCP repository with a changelog, but no public API changelog (8). The MCP server isn't in the official MCP registry, and we didn't check the mobile SDK versions (7). The MCP repository runs CI with unit and end-to-end tests (8). 30+20+8+7+8 = 73.)
- Reliability, LocationIQ +38: LocationIQ 83 (status.locationiq.com lists 15 components by data centre (geocoding, autocomplete, maps and routing in Europe, US East, US West and Asia Pacific) with RSS and Atom history back to March 2018, 74 incidents in all, per the 1 October check (20). The newest incident then was 'Network Issues' on 2 April 2026, so 6 August to 1 October was clean. On 4 November the status host answered robots.txt with its app page, so nothing more was requested there, 2 October to 4 November is unread, and the line is held at what the read part supports (30). Per-second and daily limits for every plan, and per-token and per-IP limits on top, with soft daily limits of up to 100% more on paid plans (15). Three distinct 429 messages, Rate Limited Second, Minute and Day, and a 500 that says to retry after a short wait, but no Retry-After or backoff guidance (8). No SLA. The pricing page lists custom SLAs only on its top plan and points to public uptime instead (0). GA (10). 20+30+15+8+0+10 = 83.); NextBillion.ai 45 (Hosted lines, for the REST APIs at api.nextbillion.io and the hosted MCP server. A status page at status.nextbillion.io, 'NextBillion.AI API Status', renders only in a browser, and its Statuspage-style JSON paths return 404, so we couldn't see its components (10) or read any history. That's our limit, not a finding, and the rubric gives 5 (5). The API reference states 2,400 queries a minute, or 40 a second, for continuous requests (15). Each endpoint's error table lists 429 as 'QPM or API request count quota reached', with no Retry-After or backoff guidance (5). No SLA found; the terms say access isn't warranted to be uninterrupted (0). The REST APIs are GA. The MCP server is at version 0.5.3 (10). 10+5+15+5+0+10 = 45.)
- Payments & pricing, LocationIQ +10: LocationIQ 30 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Public plan prices with daily or monthly quotas, but no per-request price or overage rate, since requests over quota are refused (10). Free plan of 5,000 requests a day with no card, and commercial use allowed with a prominent link back (20). Signup is a browser flow (0).); NextBillion.ai 20 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Pricing is by quote, with annual licences per order, asset or API call and no published unit price (0). A 7-day free trial with an API key and 'No credit card required' (20). A person signs up through the console or emails support for a key (0). 0+0+20+0 = 20.)
- Security & auth, LocationIQ +9: LocationIQ 55 (Separate tokens per application, each with scopes, HTTP referrer or IP restrictions (up to 5 CIDRs), its own rate limits, and rotation from the dashboard, which earns 30. Less 10 because the OpenAPI spec defines only the key query parameter. The free plan gets one token (20). Scopes and per-token limits give least privilege, and nothing writes (17). Results are OpenStreetMap-derived text with no prompt-injection guidance (7). The /balance endpoint shows remaining quota. We didn't check per-call logs (4). security.txt valid to 1 January 2028, re-read on 4 November, pointing to hello@locationiq.com. No bug bounty or certification found (7).); NextBillion.ai 46 (The REST APIs take a single `key` query parameter, so a plain key that travels in URLs, which earns 20 less 10. The MCP server adds OAuth 2.1 with PKCE, seals the key into tokens with AES-256-GCM, accepts a Bearer header and stores nothing server-side, so 5 back (15). Every tool is read-only, and keys can carry an IP allowlist (12). Places results are POI and address text with no prompt-injection guidance (7). Usage alerts at 50, 75 and 90 per cent of credits, per the pricing FAQ. No per-call log found (5). /.well-known/security.txt returns 404, and we found no disclosure policy or bug bounty. The about page says the company follows ISO 27001 standards, without naming a certificate (7). 15+12+7+5+7 = 46.)
- Schema & documentation, LocationIQ +5: LocationIQ 78 (OpenAPI 3.0.0 spec, version 1.5.1 on 4 November, at docs.locationiq.com/openapi.yaml, covering search, reverse, autocomplete, nearby, directions, matrix, `/optimize` and the rest, with 429 responses defined (25). docs.locationiq.com/llms.txt indexes about 50 pages, mostly as .md (10). The reference describes each endpoint and parameter (12). Typed parameters in the spec (12). An errors page with the exact message string for each code (14). v1 in the path and a versioned spec, but no changelog (5).); NextBillion.ai 73 (No OpenAPI document for the REST APIs was found in llms.txt or the docs. The hosted MCP server's 27 tools are defined with Zod schemas, so they carry typed JSON Schema inputs (15 of 25). llms.txt, llms-full.txt and a Markdown file for each docs page (10). Endpoint pages explain each parameter, and MCP tool descriptions say when not to use a tool, such as the geometry tools being straight-line rather than road distance (16). Parameter tables give types, allowed values and defaults, such as `types` and `limit` (default 10), though `in` packs several filters into one string (12). curl examples and a per-endpoint error table with causes (13). The MCP server has a dated changelog. No API changelog or versioned path was found (7). 15+10+16+12+13+7 = 73.)