# MapQuest vs Nominatim

> Nominatim scores 63.5 (B) to MapQuest's 35.4 (F) for geocoding. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapquest-vs-nominatim
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapquest-vs-nominatim.md (~4,400 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Nominatim scores 63.5 (B) on agent readiness against MapQuest's 35.4 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do geocoding.

- MapQuest: grade F, 35.4/100, rank #1373 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mapquest.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mapquest.json
- Nominatim: grade B, 63.5/100, rank #511 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nominatim.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nominatim.json
- Best maps, geocoding and places APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/maps/index.md
- All 153 maps comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/maps/index.md

## Which one, for what

### MapQuest (F)

Good for: An agent that needs US-centred geocoding, routing with truck profiles, traffic and place search behind one account, with an MCP server ready to connect.

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: No API terms of service found. The legal link leads to System1's 2021 website terms, which allow personal, non-commercial use only

### Nominatim (B)

Good for: Self-hosted worldwide geocoding from OpenStreetMap data with no per-call cost or storage limits beyond ODbL.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 82 against 23
- Agent ergonomics, 75 against 60
- Security & auth, 50 against 28
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 60 against 23
- Transparency & trust, 59 against 31

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source

Watch for: No OpenAPI spec and no llms.txt


## Why the edge

### Reliability: Nominatim +59

- MapQuest (23): Graded as a hosted service. No status page is linked from the developer site, the docs or the plans page (0). With no page there is no readable incident history (5). The reference marks endpoints 'Rate Limited Yes' and gives functional maximums (100 locations a batch, 50 a route, 25 a matrix) but no request-rate numbers (5). No 429, Retry-After or backoff guidance found (0). The Enterprise plan lists a service-level agreement, with no text published (3). The REST API is generally available and the MCP page calls the server production-ready (10).
- Nominatim (82): Read with the local-software lines, since the listing is the Nominatim server an operator runs. The public instance at nominatim.openstreetmap.org belongs to the OpenStreetMap Foundation and its usage policy caps it at one request a second, so it isn't graded as a hosted service. Official packages nominatim-db and nominatim-api on PyPI (5.3.3 on 14 October 2026, Python 3.9 or later) and installation guides for Ubuntu 22 and 24 (20). A public CI workflow runs unit and BDD tests on every push across Ubuntu 24 and 26 with PostgreSQL 13 to 18, and Windows unit tests. We couldn't see run results (20). Issue counts and reply times couldn't be read because the GitHub API was rate-limited for us; Sarah Hoffmann made 76 of the 106 commits since 8 August (12). A ChangeLog per release and semantic version numbers (15). Version 5.3.3 (15). 20+20+12+15+15 = 82.

### Maintenance & community: Nominatim +37

- MapQuest (23): The newest dated product changes are two blog announcements on 16 July 2026 (the Geolocation API and a 10,000 by 10,000 async route matrix), 84 days before the check (20). Two dated entries in 90 days. The MCP guide's version 1.2 is dated 7 July 2026, 93 days before (0). No changelog. Support is by email, untested (3). The MCP registry returns no server for 'mapquest', and the only current SDKs are browser libraries with no dated releases found (0). No package to judge (0).
- Nominatim (60): Release 5.3.3 on 14 October 2026, 23 days before this check (30). Only one release in the 90 days from 8 August, against 106 commits on the default branch; commits aren't counted as releases (0). Commits from the lead maintainer and seven or more contributors since August, but we couldn't read issue reply times (12). The nominatim-api Python library is current with the server (10). CI on every push, current PostgreSQL and Python versions (8). 30+0+12+10+8 = 60.

### Payments & pricing: Nominatim +30

- MapQuest (30): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). $0.0045 a transaction and four monthly plans are published without a login (20). 50,000 one-time free transactions, expiring 1 January 2027. The sign-up page is drawn by script, so we could not confirm that no card is needed, and half credit is given (10). A person registers in a browser. The Account API creates further keys but needs a key first (0).
- Nominatim (60): Self-hosted rule. No payment protocol (0). Free software with nothing to buy (20 + 20 + 20). The public instance is also free and keyless, within its usage policy. 0+20+20+20 = 60.

### Transparency & trust: Nominatim +28

- MapQuest (31): Closed service. The only terms linked are System1's website terms of 26 February 2021, which allow personal, non-commercial use and do not mention the APIs. The plans page states the storage rule (5). The System1 group privacy policy of 5 July 2023 gives no retention periods and describes sale and sharing of personal information, while the plans page says 'we don't collect or sell user data' (8). No deprecation policy. Dated notices exist from 2018 only (5). The policy names categories of service providers, with no list or locations. The geocoding docs name TomTom for international queries (3).
- Nominatim (59): Open source, GPL-3.0-or-later for the Python code, GPL-2.0 for other files and Apache-2.0 for the osm2pgsql Lua styles (30). A self-hosted server keeps data where the operator runs it. The public instance falls under the OSMF privacy policy and asks users not to send personal data. We didn't read the OSMF policy itself (20). SECURITY.md lists the end of security support for each release line with dates, and a migration guide covers each version (16). No telemetry found in the settings, and request logging is opt-in (15). 30+20+16+15 = 81.

### Security & auth: Nominatim +22

- MapQuest (28): REST uses API keys, several per account, created in the dashboard or by API. The MCP server uses OAuth with one scope, `mcp:tools`. That earns 20, less 10 because the `key` query parameter is the documented way to send the secret (10). No key scopes, referrer or IP restrictions, or read-only mode found in the docs (3). Place and address text is returned with no prompt-injection guidance (7). The usage endpoint reports transactions by key, service and hour (8). No security.txt, disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification found (0).
- Nominatim (50): The server has no authentication of its own; an operator puts it behind their own proxy. The public instance takes no key and identifies callers by User-Agent or Referer (5). Every endpoint reads, so there's nothing to approve (18). Results are OpenStreetMap names and tags, community-edited text, with no prompt-injection guidance (7). Query logging to a file is available through NOMINATIM_LOG_FILE and off by default (8). SECURITY.md gives security@nominatim.org, an acknowledgement within 3 work days, a disclosure process and two years of security updates per release. No bug bounty (12). 5+18+7+8+12 = 50.

### Agent ergonomics: Nominatim +15

- MapQuest (60): The MCP page names 13 tools. Their definitions were not read, so context cost is scored from the count and from REST controls such as `maxResults`, `thumbMaps=false` and `outFormat` (15). Place search pages with `pageSize` 1 to 50 and filters by category, circle, bounding box or corridor (16). Status codes are documented, with geocoding and directions errors carried in the response body and problem+json on the Account API (12). Most calls read and are safe to retry. Data Manager writes have no idempotency key, and MCP annotations were not read (10). Geocoding needs only `key` and `location`. The only current SDKs are browser libraries (7).
- Nominatim (75): API reading. limit, addressdetails, extratags, namedetails and the polygon options size responses, and geocodejson, geojson and jsonv2 formats are available (22). countrycodes, viewbox, bounded, layer, featureType and exclude_place_ids filter results, the last one standing in for pagination (18). Bad parameters return an error rather than a silent default in current versions, but there's no error code reference (12). Every endpoint reads and is safe to retry (15). Few required parameters, and the Python library exposes the same search API in-process, but there are no other official clients (8). 22+18+12+15+8 = 75.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | MapQuest | Nominatim | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 23 | 82 | Nominatim +59 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 47 | 51 | Nominatim +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 60 | 75 | Nominatim +15 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 28 | 50 | Nominatim +22 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 60 | Nominatim +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 23 | 60 | Nominatim +37 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 31 | 59 | Nominatim +28 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **35.4 · F** | **63.5 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | MapQuest | Nominatim |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | MapQuest (System1) | Nominatim project (osm-search) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://www.mapquestapi.com` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service. No API terms were found published without a login | GPL-3.0-or-later |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-07-16 | 2026-10-14 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 2.1k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.8/5 (4) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### MapQuest

- -0.1 on 28 October 2026: correction
- +0.4 on 27 October 2026: checklist

### Nominatim

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**MapQuest.** One account reaches geocoding, routing, place search and traffic through a REST API or a hosted MCP server with OAuth, at a published $0.0045 a transaction. No API terms, status page, changelog or product OpenAPI spec was found, and REST keys travel in the query string.

**Nominatim.** Nominatim is the open-source OpenStreetMap geocoder, free to run with a documented search, reverse and lookup API, tested releases and two years of security support per release. It has no OpenAPI spec, no built-in authentication, and the public instance allows one request a second and restricts LLM-suggested use, so agents at scale need their own server.

## Before you call either

### MapQuest

1. Register an account and create an API key before connecting the MCP server. Every tool needs an active key, chosen by nickname on first use
2. Send REST calls to `https://www.mapquestapi.com` with `key` in the query string, and redact it from logged URLs
3. Read `info.statuscode` in geocoding and directions responses. 0 is success, and errors such as 610 (ambiguous location) arrive in the body
4. Set `thumbMaps=false` and `maxResults` on geocoding, and `pageSize` (1 to 50) on place search, to keep responses small
5. Do not store or cache geocodes on a monthly or pay-as-you-go plan

### Nominatim

1. Don't send bulk or repeated queries to nominatim.openstreetmap.org; keep to one request a second, cache results and set an identifying User-Agent
2. Tell the user about the OSMF usage policy before suggesting the public instance, as the policy requires
3. For regular or large jobs, run your own Nominatim or use a commercial provider listed on the Nominatim wiki
4. Pass format=jsonv2 or geojson and limit, since omitting format sends the request to the web UI
5. Attribute OpenStreetMap and respect the ODbL share-alike terms when storing results

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, MapQuest or Nominatim?

Nominatim scores 63.5 (B) on agent readiness against MapQuest's 35.4 (F), and leads in every scored category.

### Do MapQuest and Nominatim need an API key?

MapQuest takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Nominatim needs no key.

### Can an agent call MapQuest and Nominatim without installing anything?

MapQuest has a hosted endpoint at https://www.mapquestapi.com. No hosted endpoint is listed for Nominatim.

### Are MapQuest and Nominatim open source?

No open-source release is listed for MapQuest. Nominatim is open source (GPL-3.0-or-later).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapquest-vs-nominatim.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapquest-vs-nominatim.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "mapquest", "b": "nominatim"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare mapquest nominatim`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mapquest.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nominatim.json

## Other comparisons with MapQuest or Nominatim

- [Amazon Location Service vs MapQuest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-mapquest.md)
- [Amazon Location Service vs Nominatim](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amazon-location-vs-nominatim.md)
- [ArcGIS Location Platform vs MapQuest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcgis-vs-mapquest.md)
- [ArcGIS Location Platform vs Nominatim](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcgis-vs-nominatim.md)
- [Azure Maps vs MapQuest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-maps-vs-mapquest.md)
- [Azure Maps vs Nominatim](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/azure-maps-vs-nominatim.md)
- [Geoapify Location Platform + MCP vs MapQuest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geoapify-vs-mapquest.md)
- [Geoapify Location Platform + MCP vs Nominatim](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geoapify-vs-nominatim.md)
- [Geocodio vs MapQuest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-mapquest.md)
- [Geocodio vs Nominatim](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/geocodio-vs-nominatim.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs MapQuest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-mapquest.md)
- [Google Maps Platform + Grounding Lite MCP vs Nominatim](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-maps-platform-vs-nominatim.md)
- [HERE Location Services vs MapQuest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/here-location-services-vs-mapquest.md)
- [HERE Location Services vs Nominatim](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/here-location-services-vs-nominatim.md)
- [LocationIQ vs MapQuest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/locationiq-vs-mapquest.md)
- [LocationIQ vs Nominatim](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/locationiq-vs-nominatim.md)
- [Mapbox APIs + MCP vs MapQuest](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapbox-vs-mapquest.md)
- [Mapbox APIs + MCP vs Nominatim](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapbox-vs-nominatim.md)
- [MapQuest vs MapTiler Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapquest-vs-maptiler.md)
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- [MapQuest vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapquest-vs-radar.md)
- [MapQuest vs Stadia Maps](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapquest-vs-stadia-maps.md)
- [MapQuest vs TomTom Maps APIs + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapquest-vs-tomtom.md)
- [MapQuest vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mapquest-vs-woosmap.md)
- [MapTiler Cloud vs Nominatim](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/maptiler-vs-nominatim.md)
- [NextBillion.ai vs Nominatim](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nextbillion-vs-nominatim.md)
- [Nominatim vs OpenCage Geocoding API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-opencage.md)
- [Nominatim vs Radar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-radar.md)
- [Nominatim vs Stadia Maps](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-stadia-maps.md)
- [Nominatim vs TomTom Maps APIs + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-tomtom.md)
- [Nominatim vs Woosmap](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-woosmap.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp