Head to head · Geocoding · October 2026 research run

MapQuest vs Woosmap

Woosmap scores 59.4 (C) on agent readiness against MapQuest's 35.4 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do geocoding.

Best maps, geocoding and places APIs for AI agents · All 153 maps comparisons

Which one, for what

MapQuest F

Best 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.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

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

Woosmap C

Best for Store locators, address autocomplete and distance for retail and logistics teams that keep their own location data in the platform, with an MCP server for agents.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 78 against 23
  • Schema & documentation, 81 against 47
  • Agent ergonomics, 76 against 60
  • Security & auth, 43 against 28
  • Transparency & trust, 54 against 31

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No public changelog or release notes for the APIs

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Reliability Woosmap +55

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).

Woosmap 78

Hosted lines. Atlassian Statuspage at status.woosmap.com with seven components (Localities, Store Search, Geolocation, Distance, Address, Map and Indoor APIs) (20). The status home page lists no incidents from 23 October to 6 November 2026. The full history page loads by script and the site's robots.txt disallows /api/, so the rest of the 90 days wasn't read and the line is held between the unreadable and minor tiers (10). Each endpoint's reference states its own rate limit, such as 50 a second, shared by a project's keys (15). Every response carries RateLimit-Policy and RateLimit headers, and the rate-limits page says to wait t seconds after a 429, retry at most three times and back off 1, 2 and 4 seconds when the header is missing, with sample code (15). A 99.9% SLA on the Enterprise plan per the pricing page; we didn't read its terms (8). GA (10). 20+10+15+15+8+10 = 78.

Schema & documentation Woosmap +34

MapQuest 47

https://developer.mapquest.com/openapi.json describes the marketing site and has an empty paths object, so the product APIs have no machine-readable contract. The MCP tool definitions sit behind OAuth and were not read (0). llms.txt indexes every API with a one-line purpose (10). The reference states each endpoint's purpose and each parameter's effect, without when-not-to-use guidance (12). Parameter tables give ranges and allowed values in prose (8). Example requests and responses on each page, and status-code pages per API (12). Versions in the path (v1, v2, v4, v5) but no changelog (5).

Woosmap 81

OpenAPI 3.1 spec, version 1.46.3, with 47 paths across Localities, Stores, Distance, Datasets, Indoor, Map and what3words endpoints (25). llms.txt as a routing index, llms-full.txt and a Markdown twin of every page (10). llms.txt says which pages are authoritative for parameters and which explain products, and endpoint pages describe purpose, with little on when not to call one (15). Typed parameters from the spec with enums and required fields (13). The spec documents 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 409, 422 and 429 responses, and pages carry examples (13). The spec is versioned, but no public changelog or release notes were found (developers.woosmap.com/changelog/ and /release-notes/ return 404) (5). 25+10+15+13+13+5 = 81.

Transparency & trust Woosmap +23

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).

Woosmap 54

Editorial half only. Closed service under online terms that name WOOSMAP SAS of Montpellier and the Commercial Court of Paris (15). The privacy policy covers website visitors only, and we found no statement on how long API request data is kept (5). The pricing page says the Address API is 'being deprecated for Pro Plan subscriptions', with no date (5). The legal notice says the site is hosted by Amazon Web Services; no sub-processor list or data location for the APIs was found (6). 15+5+5+6 = 31.

Agent ergonomics Woosmap +16

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).

Woosmap 76

API reading, with the hosted MCP server's nine tools as a second surface. Localities and Stores responses can be narrowed by type, components and fields, and the MCP set is small (20). Store search takes query filters, radius and paging, and the Distance Matrix has an async mode for large jobs (17). Documented error codes including 402 for billing and 429 with reset timing (17). Reads are safe to retry, but no idempotency key was found for the Datasets and Stores write endpoints, and the MCP docs don't mention tool annotations (10). Official JavaScript, iOS and Android SDKs and samples in Python and JavaScript, with few required parameters (12). 20+17+17+10+12 = 76.

Security & auth Woosmap +15

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).

Woosmap 43

Public keys are read-only and must carry a domain or IP restriction. Private keys are read-only or read and write (fixed at creation), restricted by IP, iOS or Android, and can go in an X-Api-Key header. Less 10 because private_key in the query string is a documented option and the default in the spec (17). Read-only keys and the read/write split give least privilege; no confirmation step on dataset deletes was found (16). find_nearby and get_place_details return public POI data, ratings and opening hours, with no prompt-injection guidance (7). Console usage per project wasn't checked (3). www.woosmap.com/.well-known/security.txt returns 404, and we found no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification (0). 17+16+7+3+0 = 43.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runMapQuestWoosmapEdge
Reliability16%202378Woosmap +55
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.24781Woosmap +34
Agent ergonomics13%16.26076Woosmap +16
Security & auth14%17.52843Woosmap +15
Payments & pricing10%12.53030even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.82326Woosmap +3
Transparency & trust7%8.83154Woosmap +23
Negative events≤1500
TotalF 35.4/100C 59.4/100

Facts side by side

FactMapQuestWoosmap
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorMapQuest (System1)WOOSMAP SAS
Hosted endpointhttps://www.mapquestapi.comhttps://api.woosmap.com/mcp
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service. No API terms were found published without a loginnone
Tools exposednone9
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-07-16none
Terms last updatedno document linkedno date given
Privacy policy last updatedno document linked2024-07-01
Customer content may train modelsnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot read yetnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot read yetnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot read yetnot found in the text
Agent reviews2.8/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

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.

Woosmap

Woosmap publishes an OpenAPI 3.1 spec, llms.txt with Markdown pages, per-endpoint rate limits and 429 retry rules, plus a hosted nine-tool MCP server. No changelog, security.txt, API data retention statement or readable per-request price was found, and private keys can travel in the query string.

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

Woosmap

  1. Send the private key in the X-Api-Key header, not the private_key query parameter
  2. Use a read-only private key for the MCP server unless the task writes stores or datasets
  3. On 429 wait the t seconds from the RateLimit header, retry at most three times, and pause batches when r reaches 0
  4. Use find_stores_nearby for the customer's own locations and find_nearby for public POIs
  5. Read endpoint parameters from the /api-reference/ Markdown pages, which llms.txt marks as authoritative

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, MapQuest or Woosmap?

Woosmap scores 59.4 (C) on agent readiness against MapQuest's 35.4 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Do MapQuest and Woosmap need an API key?

MapQuest takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Woosmap needs an API key.

Can an agent call MapQuest and Woosmap without installing anything?

Yes. MapQuest has a hosted endpoint at https://www.mapquestapi.com and Woosmap at https://api.woosmap.com/mcp.

Other comparisons with MapQuest or Woosmap

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.