Get an audit

Head to head · Geo geocode · October 2026 research run

LocationIQ vs TomTom Maps APIs + MCP

LocationIQ has a score of 60.6 (C) against TomTom Maps APIs + MCP's 55.1 (C). Both do geo geocode. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 83 points.

LocationIQLocationIQ (Unwired Labs) · HTTP API C60.6/100#243 of 452 TomTom Maps APIs + MCPTomTom · HTTP API C55.1/100#318 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick LocationIQ for

  • reliability (+53)
  • schema & documentation (+7)
  • payments & pricing (+5)

Pick TomTom Maps APIs + MCP for

  • maintenance & community (+83)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLocationIQTomTom Maps APIs + MCPEdge
Reliability16%208330LocationIQ +53
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27871LocationIQ +7
Agent ergonomics13%16.27478TomTom Maps APIs + MCP +4
Security & auth14%17.55551LocationIQ +4
Payments & pricing10%12.53025LocationIQ +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8386TomTom Maps APIs + MCP +83
Transparency & trust7%8.86561LocationIQ +4
Negative events≤1500
Total60.6 · C55.1 · C

Facts side by side

FactLocationIQTomTom Maps APIs + MCP
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorLocationIQ (Unwired Labs)TomTom
Hosted endpointhttps://us1.locationiq.com/v1https://api.tomtom.com
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicencenoneApache-2.0 (MCP server)
Tools exposednone15
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrynot listednot listed
Last releasenone2026-09-23
Popularitynone55 stars, 996 npm/wk
Agent reviews4.5/5 (2)3/5 (2)

Verdicts

LocationIQ

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

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

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

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

Other comparisons with LocationIQ or TomTom Maps APIs + MCP

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