Head to head · Geocoding · October 2026 research run

MapTiler Cloud vs TomTom Maps APIs + MCP

MapTiler Cloud scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against TomTom Maps APIs + MCP's 45.9 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. TomTom Maps APIs + MCP leads on agent ergonomics and maintenance & community. 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

  • Reliability, 43 against 15
  • Schema & documentation, 79 against 71
  • Security & auth, 64 against 51
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 25
  • Transparency & trust, 80 against 58

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where TomTom Maps APIs + MCP loses 6 points for them

Watch for

The API key is always sent as a query parameter

TomTom Maps APIs + MCP E

Best for Drive planning with live traffic, EV charging and reachable range.

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 78 against 70
  • Maintenance & community, 86 against 70

Also in its favour

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

Watch for

Terms, rate limits and deprecation policy couldn't be read, so storage rules and notice periods are unverified

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 MapTiler Cloud +28

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.

TomTom Maps APIs + MCP 15

TomTom's API status page sits on tomtom.service-now.com, whose robots.txt disallows every path on 4 November, so the earlier status readings are struck (0). With no history we may read, the record scores 5. No published QPS limits or 429 guidance were found on the docs pages we read on 1 October; TomTom's acceptable use policy now bars robots from its websites, so they weren't re-read (0). The MCP maps a 429 to a typed rate-limit error with a message, and we found nothing on Retry-After (5, the earlier partial kept). No SLA found (0). Orbis APIs went GA on 8 July 2026, but the remote MCP server is in public preview and the README says some Orbis and EV services may not be enabled on every account (5, kept). 0+5+0+5+0+5 = 15.

Transparency & trust MapTiler Cloud +22

MapTiler Cloud 80

Editorial half only. Closed service with general and Cloud-specific terms under Swiss law, and SDKs under BSD 3-Clause and the skill under MIT (20). The privacy policy covers account and payment data and says legal-claim data is kept up to 10 years, but says nothing about how long API request logs are kept (15). A dated deprecation page for v3 maps and migration guides, with no written notice period (12). Hosting with OVHcloud and Google Firebase, data mainly in Switzerland and the EEA, and an EU-only endpoint. Google Analytics, Firebase and FastSpring named in the privacy policy (17). 20+15+12+17 = 64.

TomTom Maps APIs + MCP 58

Closed APIs with an Apache-2.0 MCP server. The developer terms page still renders client-side on 4 November, and TomTom's acceptable use policy (linked from its Terms of Use of 1 September 2025) bars data mining, robots and scraping on all TomTom websites, so the privacy and deprecation pages weren't re-read. Licence clarity 10, data handling 11 of 30, deprecation 8 and subprocessors 12 of 20 stand per the 2 October check, not re-read on 4 November. 10+11+8+12 = 41.

Maintenance & community TomTom Maps APIs + MCP +16

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.

TomTom Maps APIs + MCP 86

MCP v1.6.15 on 2 November 2026 (30). Eight tags since 6 August, v1.6.8 (15 September) to v1.6.15 (2 November) (20). Pull requests from several maintainers merged up to 3 November 2026. We couldn't see issue reply times from git (18, kept). The package is at 1.6.15 in its repository; the 30 September note that it wasn't in the official MCP registry came from the registry's JSON API and is struck (8, kept). CI runs type checks, lint, build, end-to-end tests and a Veracode scan, with dependabot (10). 30+20+18+8+10 = 86.

Payments & pricing MapTiler Cloud +15

MapTiler Cloud 40

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-1,000 prices for requests ($0.15) and sessions ($2.50) public without login (20). Free plan with no card, though only for testing and non-commercial use (20). Signup is a browser flow (0). 0+20+20+0 = 40.

TomTom Maps APIs + MCP 25

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Free allowances are public, but the pricing page re-read on 2 October showed no paid rate as a number, only a euro estimator and a contact-sales link (5 of 20, kept). A no-card free allowance of 20,000 geocodes, 20,000 reverse geocodes and 20,000 routes a month, with Search and Matrix at 2,500 (20). Signup is a browser flow (0). The pricing page is on a host whose acceptable use policy now bars robots, so it wasn't re-read on 4 November. 0+5+20+0 = 25.

Security & auth MapTiler Cloud +13

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.

TomTom Maps APIs + MCP 51

API keys from the developer portal, limited to the products selected for them, which earns 25. Less 10 because REST calls take the key as the key query parameter. The hosted MCP takes a tomtom-api-key header, and the source carries OAuth with an audience check that 1.6.13 made mandatory for OAuth deployments (15). Keys can be limited by product and every tool reads (16). Results include POI names and traffic incident text with no prompt-injection guidance. An app-only tool, tomtom-get-api-key, returns the raw key to the map app; since 1.6.12 clients that render no apps don't receive it (6, kept). We didn't find per-call logs or usage reporting we could read (0). HackerOne disclosure programme with a 3 business day first response in the organisation's SECURITY.md, Veracode scanning in CI, and no security.txt per the 30 September check (14, kept). 15+16+6+0+14 = 51.

Schema & documentation MapTiler Cloud +8

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.

TomTom Maps APIs + MCP 71

No public OpenAPI that we found. The MCP's tools have Zod schemas with described fields (22). docs.tomtom.com/llms.txt indexes about 180 pages, many as .md, per the 2 October check, not re-read on 4 November (10). Tool descriptions are mostly one line, with little on when not to use a tool (12). Typed fields with constraints, and since 1.6.12 the search, routing and EV tools list their valid values from the maps-sdk (11, kept). We couldn't read the REST error reference. The MCP returns typed errors per status code, and since 1.6.13 tells a 401 from a 403 (8). Versioned REST paths; the MCP CHANGELOG.md has dated entries from 1.6.11 (5 October 2026) to 1.6.14 and says 1.1.1 to 1.6.10 have none (8, kept). 22+10+12+11+8+8 = 71.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runMapTiler CloudTomTom Maps APIs + MCPEdge
Reliability16%204315MapTiler Cloud +28
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27971MapTiler Cloud +8
Agent ergonomics13%16.27078TomTom Maps APIs + MCP +8
Security & auth14%17.56451MapTiler Cloud +13
Payments & pricing10%12.54025MapTiler Cloud +15
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87086TomTom Maps APIs + MCP +16
Transparency & trust7%8.88058MapTiler Cloud +22
Negative events≤150-6
TotalB 62.1/100E 45.9/100

Facts side by side

FactMapTiler CloudTomTom Maps APIs + MCP
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorMapTiler AGTomTom
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.tomtom.com
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicencenoneApache-2.0 (MCP server)
Tools exposednone13
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-022026-11-02
Terms last updatedno date givencouldn't be read
Privacy policy last updatedno date givencouldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textcouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waiveryescouldn't be read
Popularity115k npm/wk55 stars, 996 npm/wk
Agent reviewsnone3/5 (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.

TomTom Maps APIs + MCP

No-card free allowance of 20,000 geocodes, 20,000 reverse geocodes and 20,000 routes a month, with an official MCP server released about weekly. Terms, rate limits and the deprecation policy couldn't be read, the status page bars our reader, and MCP patch releases in October removed tools and inputs without notice.

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

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. Pin @tomtom-org/tomtom-mcp to a version, since patch releases have removed tools and changed inputs
  3. Page search results with cursor and the previous response's nextCursor, not ofs, from 1.6.12
  4. Read a 403 as the account or key not covering the API, and don't retry it; a 401 means a missing or unknown key
  5. Redact the key parameter before logging REST URLs

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, MapTiler Cloud or TomTom Maps APIs + MCP?

MapTiler Cloud scores 62.1 (B) on agent readiness against TomTom Maps APIs + MCP's 45.9 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. TomTom Maps APIs + MCP leads on agent ergonomics and maintenance & community.

Do MapTiler Cloud and TomTom Maps APIs + MCP need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call MapTiler Cloud and TomTom Maps APIs + MCP without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for MapTiler Cloud. TomTom Maps APIs + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://api.tomtom.com.

Other comparisons with MapTiler Cloud or TomTom Maps APIs + MCP

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