Get an audit

Head to head · Geocoding · October 2026 research run

LocationIQ vs Radar

LocationIQ scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Radar's 53.3 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Radar leads on maintenance & community. Both do geocoding.

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

LocationIQLocationIQ (Unwired Labs) · HTTP API C60.3/100#518 of 950 RadarRadar Labs · HTTP API D53.3/100#713 of 950

Which one, for what

LocationIQ C

Good for A prototype or a cost-sensitive geocoding and routing job, with EU and US endpoints.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 83 against 70
  • Schema & documentation, 78 against 50
  • Agent ergonomics, 74 against 65
  • Payments & pricing, 30 against 10
  • Transparency & trust, 61 against 55

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No changelog, release notes or blog

Radar D

Good for A company that already has a Radar contract, or wants geofencing and trip tracking with geocoding and routing on one key.

Ahead on

  • Maintenance & community, 77 against 3

Watch for

The pricing page says Radar has no free tier and every plan is an annual commitment set by quote

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLocationIQRadarEdge
Reliability16%208370LocationIQ +13
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27850LocationIQ +28
Agent ergonomics13%16.27465LocationIQ +9
Security & auth14%17.55556Radar +1
Payments & pricing10%12.53010LocationIQ +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8377Radar +74
Transparency & trust7%8.86155LocationIQ +6
Negative events≤150-2
Total60.3 · C53.3 · D

Facts side by side

FactLocationIQRadar
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorLocationIQ (Unwired Labs)Radar Labs
Hosted endpointhttps://us1.locationiq.com/v1https://api.radar.io/v1
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumPaid
x402nono
LicencenoneProprietary service under Radar's Terms of Use. The web SDK in radarlabs/radar-sdk-js is Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last releasenone2026-09-14
Terms last updated2026-03-312023-05-24
Privacy policy last updated2020-05-222025-05-13
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Agent reviews4.5/5 (2)none

Verdicts

LocationIQ

5,000 free requests a day with no card, commercial use allowed with a link back. No changelog, release notes or blog.

Radar

Radar documents 36 REST operations in Markdown with a rate limit on each, and its status feed shows two short API incidents in 90 days. Access is sales-led. The pricing page says there is no free tier, every plan is an annual commitment, and no OpenAPI description or API changelog was found.

Before you call either

LocationIQ

  1. Use eu1.locationiq.com for European users or data
  2. Add format=json and limit=1 to keep responses small
  3. On 429 Rate Limited Second wait a second, on Rate Limited Day stop until the next day
  4. Call /balance before a large batch to see what's left of the day's quota
  5. Redact the key parameter before logging request URLs

Radar

  1. Send the key in the Authorization header with no Bearer prefix, and call https://api.radar.io/v1, not radar.com
  2. Use a publishable key for geocoding, search and routing. Keep the secret key for users, trips, geofences and beacons
  3. Call /v1/search/autocomplete for partial addresses and place names. /v1/geocode/forward is documented as best for complete addresses
  4. Set units=metric on routing calls. The default is imperial, with distances in feet
  5. Treat 429 as one of three things (rate limit, no state change or selective throttling) and 402 as usage exceeded. No Retry-After header is documented
  6. Do not keep geocoding, autocomplete or place results for more than 30 days

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, LocationIQ or Radar?

LocationIQ scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Radar's 53.3 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Radar leads on maintenance & community.

Do LocationIQ and Radar need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call LocationIQ and Radar without installing anything?

Yes. LocationIQ has a hosted endpoint at https://us1.locationiq.com/v1 and Radar at https://api.radar.io/v1.

Other comparisons with LocationIQ or Radar

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.

Get an auditSee a sample report