Head to head · Geocoding · October 2026 research run

MapTiler Cloud vs Stadia Maps

Stadia Maps scores 65.2 (B) on agent readiness against MapTiler Cloud's 62.1 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. MapTiler Cloud leads on security & auth. Both do geocoding.

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

Which one, for what

MapTiler Cloud B

Best for Map tiles, static maps and worldwide geocoding with storable results for apps that also show a map, with EU data residency.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 64 against 40

Watch for

The API key is always sent as a query parameter

Stadia Maps B

Best for Cost-sensitive geocoding, routing and tiles on OpenStreetMap data, with traffic-influenced routing since April 2026.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 63 against 43
  • Schema & documentation, 86 against 79
  • Agent ergonomics, 80 against 70
  • Maintenance & community, 80 against 70

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Runs on your own machine

Watch for

Free plan is for development, testing and demos only

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.

Security & auth MapTiler Cloud +24

MapTiler Cloud 64

Revocable keys that can be limited to origins and a User-Agent substring and managed by the API keys API, and service tokens that sign requests so the token itself never travels, which earns 27. Less 10 because the key is 'always passed as a query parameter' (17). The public APIs are read-only, and account changes need a separate service token (16). Geocoding returns OpenStreetMap names and addresses, community-edited text, with no prompt-injection guidance (7). An Analytics API and account usage statistics (8). security.txt, a vulnerability disclosure policy and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification per the security page. No bug bounty found (16). 17+16+7+8+16 = 64.

Stadia Maps 40

Revocable keys per property with rotation through the Account Management API and a header option (Authorization: Stadia-Auth), which earns 25. Less 10 because api_key in the query string is a documented option (the authentication page re-read on 2 November calls it the simplest) and the OpenAPI document defines only that scheme (15). The APIs only read, but keys aren't scoped to particular APIs (12). Results carry OpenStreetMap names, websites and opening hours, which are community-edited text, and we found no prompt-injection guidance (7). Dashboard usage and billing threshold alerts added on 20 August 2026 (6). stadiamaps.com/.well-known/security.txt still answers 404 on 2 November, and we found no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification (0). 15+12+7+6+0 = 40.

Reliability Stadia Maps +20

MapTiler Cloud 43

Hosted lines. status.maptiler.com is a StatusCake public uptime report rather than a component incident page (15). Its data loads from app.statuscake.com, whose robots.txt answered with a redirect, so we didn't fetch it and read no history. That's our limit, not a finding, and the rubric gives 5 (5). Monthly request and session quotas are published per plan, but no per-second limit (5). No 429, Retry-After or backoff guidance found in the API reference, the OpenAPI spec or llms-full.txt (0). The pricing page lists a 99.9% SLA on the Custom plan, while the Cloud terms call availability best effort and point to a custom SLA (8). The public APIs are GA (10). 15+5+5+0+8+10 = 43.

Stadia Maps 63

Instatus page with 27 components across maps, routing, geocoding and data APIs, plus RSS and Atom history back to April 2025 (20). One incident in the 90 days to 2 November (history feed re-read on 2 November), on 25 September 2026, when a software update on edge nodes caused elevated request errors "in the initial deployment regions" across 24 listed components from 10:20 to 10:22 UTC before it was rolled back. Limited to some regions and two minutes, so minor (20). The FAQ says there's no fixed requests-a-second limit and the cap is the monthly credit pool, with credits per call published (12). A 429 is what you get when credits run out until the next cycle, with no Retry-After and no backoff guidance, so an agent can't tell a spent month from a burst (3). No SLA. The terms say the service is provided as is (0). The APIs are GA, but the MCP server has no release (8). 20+20+12+3+0+8 = 63.

Agent ergonomics Stadia Maps +10

MapTiler Cloud 70

API reading. limit, types, bbox, proximity, country, language and fuzzyMatch size geocoding results, and the batch endpoint takes up to 50 queries (20). Country, bbox and type filters, no pagination (geocoding rarely needs it) (16). Errors are documented as 400 and 403 with no recovery guidance (10). Every public API reads and is safe to retry (12). Few required parameters, but official clients are JavaScript and TypeScript only, plus native mobile SDKs (12). 20+16+10+12+12 = 70.

Stadia Maps 80

Six MCP tools, pared down on 20 June 2025 'to save on context tokens' (25). size, layers, boundary filters and focus points on geocoding, and a bulk geocoding endpoint (18). The same 429 means a burst or a spent month, which costs a turn to work out (12). Every call reads, but the MCP tools carry no readOnlyHint or other annotations (10). Official generated SDKs in TypeScript and Python, with sensible defaults (15). 25+18+12+10+15 = 80.

Maintenance & community Stadia Maps +10

MapTiler Cloud 70

@maptiler/client 3.1.0 and @maptiler/sdk 4.2.0 on 2 October 2026, 35 days before this check, with the agent skill updated on 21 October (20). Platform updates entries for August (EU endpoint, key security) and September 2026 (terrain blending) plus the two October releases (20). A Discord community and support answered on a best-effort basis within two business days, per the Cloud terms. We didn't read GitHub issues (10). Official JavaScript client and SDK current, no Python client (12). The SDK repository runs unit and end-to-end tests in CI; we didn't check results (8). 20+20+10+12+8 = 70.

Stadia Maps 80

Changelog entry on 26 October 2026, a forward geocoding fix for Unicode edge cases (30). 14 dated changelog entries between 12 August and 26 October 2026, among them the 20 October Static Maps rebuild and the 17 October geocoding data release (20). A public changelog and support desk, but the MCP repo's last commit is still 29 July 2025 on 2 November (10). Official TypeScript SDK v9.1.0 and Python SDK v8.1.0, both tagged 27 April 2026 and still the newest tags (15). SDK CI runs integration tests against the live API, but the MCP server has no CI, no tagged release, no npm package and no registry entry (5). 30+20+10+15+5 = 80.

Schema & documentation Stadia Maps +7

MapTiler Cloud 79

OpenAPI 3.1.0 document with 32 paths for the public APIs (25). llms.txt, llms-full.txt and a Markdown twin of every page (10). Each API page says what it's for and when to use the SDK instead (session billing), with little on when not to call it (13). Parameters are typed with defaults, such as limit (default 5 forward, 1 reverse) and a types enum, but bbox and proximity are strings (11). Examples on every endpoint, and the spec documents 400, 403, 404 and 414, without an error reference page (10). A dated platform updates page and a geocoding index changelog, but no version in the API path and the spec is version '1.0' (10). 25+10+13+11+10+10 = 79.

Stadia Maps 86

Public OpenAPI 3.1.0 document at api.stadiamaps.com/openapi.yaml, version 11.1.0 (re-read on 2 November), from which the TypeScript and Python SDKs are generated (25). llms.txt at docs.stadiamaps.com, re-read on 2 November (10). The MCP's six tool descriptions say when not to use a tool, for example bulk-geocode warns against POI names (14). Zod inputs with minimums such as at least two route locations, but some fields are loose strings (12). Docs examples per endpoint. We didn't read an error reference (10). A dated public changelog with 14 entries between 12 August and 26 October 2026 and a Keep a Changelog file in each SDK (15). 25+10+14+12+10+15 = 86.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runMapTiler CloudStadia MapsEdge
Reliability16%204363Stadia Maps +20
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27986Stadia Maps +7
Agent ergonomics13%16.27080Stadia Maps +10
Security & auth14%17.56440MapTiler Cloud +24
Payments & pricing10%12.54040even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87080Stadia Maps +10
Transparency & trust7%8.88076MapTiler Cloud +4
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 62.1/100B 65.2/100

Facts side by side

FactMapTiler CloudStadia Maps
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorMapTiler AGStadia Maps
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.stadiamaps.com
TransportsHTTPHTTP, stdio
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
Price for geocodingnot published$0.40 per 1,000 requests
x402nono
LicencenoneBSD-3-Clause (MCP server)
Tools exposednone6
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-022026-10-26
Terms last updatedno date given2026-03-18
Privacy policy last updatedno date given2026-10-01
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot found in the text
Popularity115k npm/wk23 stars, 6.1k npm/wk, 192 PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone3.5/5 (2)

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

MapTiler Cloud

MapTiler Cloud has an OpenAPI 3.1 reference, llms.txt with Markdown pages, an agent skill and ISO 27001 certification, and allows geocoding results to be stored. The key always travels in the query string, there's no routing API, no documented rate limit or 429 handling, and the free plan excludes commercial use.

Stadia Maps

Public OpenAPI spec (11.1.0) with generated TypeScript and Python SDKs. Free plan is for development, testing and demos only.

Before you call either

MapTiler Cloud

  1. Restrict the key to an origin or User-Agent, or sign requests with a service token from a backend, since the key appears in every URL
  2. Use the batch geocoding path (up to 50 semicolon-separated queries) rather than one call per address
  3. Use api.maptiler.eu when the user's requests must stay in the EU
  4. Read docs pages as Markdown by appending .md, starting from https://docs.maptiler.com/llms.txt
  5. Don't cache map tiles server-side; the Cloud terms forbid it, though geocoding results may be stored with attribution

Stadia Maps

  1. Send the key as Authorization: Stadia-Auth <key> rather than in the URL
  2. Try Autocomplete v2 (1 credit) before a full geocode (20 credits) when a name is enough
  3. Check the dashboard's credit balance before retrying a 429, since it may mean the month is spent
  4. Don't write geocodes to a database on Free or Starter
  5. Use bulk-geocode for addresses only, not POI names

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, MapTiler Cloud or Stadia Maps?

Stadia Maps scores 65.2 (B) on agent readiness against MapTiler Cloud's 62.1 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. MapTiler Cloud leads on security & auth.

Do MapTiler Cloud and Stadia Maps need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call MapTiler Cloud and Stadia Maps without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for MapTiler Cloud. Stadia Maps has a hosted endpoint at https://api.stadiamaps.com.

Other comparisons with MapTiler Cloud or Stadia Maps

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