# NextBillion.ai vs OpenCage Geocoding API (slim)

> OpenCage Geocoding scores 67.5 (B) to NextBillion.ai's 55.4 (C) for geocoding. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nextbillion-vs-opencage.md (~4,350 tokens) · this version ~2,180 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nextbillion-vs-opencage.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nextbillion-vs-opencage
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

OpenCage Geocoding API scores 67.5 (B) on agent readiness against NextBillion.ai's 55.4 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do geocoding.

- NextBillion.ai: C 55.4, rank #874 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nextbillion.min.md
- OpenCage Geocoding API: B 67.5, rank #321 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/opencage.min.md
- NextBillion.ai, good for Fleet and delivery routing, distance matrices and route optimisation with truck profiles, plus geocoding and POI search, for companies ready for an annual contract. Also No incidents deducted, where OpenCage Geocoding API loses 3 points for them.
- OpenCage Geocoding API, good for Bulk or repeated geocoding where results go into a database, and for EU data residency. Ahead on Reliability, 85 against 45; Agent ergonomics, 86 against 77; Payments & pricing, 35 against 20; Maintenance & community, 86 against 73; Transparency & trust, 85 against 58. Also Runs on your own machine.

| Category | NextBillion.ai | OpenCage Geocoding API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 45 | 85 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 73 | 77 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 77 | 86 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 46 | 44 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 20 | 35 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 73 | 86 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 58 | 85 |

| Fact (where they differ) | NextBillion.ai | OpenCage Geocoding API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | NextBillion.ai Pte. Ltd. | OpenCage |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.nextbillion.io` | `https://api.opencagedata.com/geocode/v1/json` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Licence | none | MIT (MCP server) |
| Tools exposed | 27 | 3 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.OpenCageData/opencage-geocoding-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-10-30 | 2026-10-28 |
| Popularity | none | 19 stars, 5.5k npm/wk, 138k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, OpenCage Geocoding API +40: NextBillion.ai 45 (Hosted lines, for the REST APIs at api.nextbillion.io and the hosted MCP server. A status page at status.nextbillion.io, 'NextBillion.AI API Status', renders only in a browser, and its Statuspage-style JSON paths return 404, so we couldn't see its components (10) or read any history. That's our limit, not a finding, and the rubric gives 5 (5). The API reference states 2,400 queries a minute, or 40 a second, for continuous requests (15). Each endpoint's error table lists 429 as 'QPM or API request count quota reached', with no Retry-After or backoff guidance (5). No SLA found; the terms say access isn't warranted to be uninterrupted (0). The REST APIs are GA. The MCP server is at version 0.5.3 (10). 10+5+15+5+0+10 = 45.); OpenCage Geocoding API 85 (Instatus page at status.opencagedata.com, measured by StatusCake, with forward geocoding, reverse geocoding, geosearch, the website and email sending as components (20). The incident history feed, read on 1 November 2026, lists nothing since the 26 June 2026 email outage, so the last 90 days are clean (30). Free trial limits of 2,500 a day and 1 a second, and per-second rates for each paid plan (15). 402 for a spent quota and 429 for going too fast are separate codes, and free and one-time plans get X-RateLimit-Limit, -Remaining and -Reset. There's no backoff guidance beyond '408 means try again' (10). No SLA found (0). GA (10).)
- Transparency & trust, OpenCage Geocoding API +27: NextBillion.ai 58 (Editorial half only. Closed service under terms that name NextBillion.ai Pte. Ltd. and Singapore law, and an Apache-2.0 MCP server (18). The privacy policy keeps personal data while a legitimate business need exists, with no periods given. The MCP README says only tool arguments are sent to the API and nothing is retained between requests (14). No deprecation policy or dated notices found. The terms promise 10 days' notice of material changes to the terms (3). Data is mainly processed in Singapore, with transfers abroad under standard clauses. No sub-processor list found (8). 18+14+3+8 = 43.); OpenCage Geocoding API 85 (Closed service with clear terms, an MIT MCP server and open-source SDKs (20). Results may be stored permanently, even after cancelling. Query logs are deleted after six months and never used to train AI, no_record turns query logging off, and the DPA is public on GitHub. The GDPR page was updated 22 July 2026 with its change history (30). A dated API changelog that announces deprecations, such as the jsonp parameter on 11 May 2026, which keeps working for existing customers. No written deprecation policy (14). Seven subprocessors with locations, and hosting at Hetzner in Germany and Finland with backups in Switzerland (20).)
- Payments & pricing, OpenCage Geocoding API +15: NextBillion.ai 20 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Pricing is by quote, with annual licences per order, asset or API call and no published unit price (0). A 7-day free trial with an API key and 'No credit card required' (20). A person signs up through the console or emails support for a key (0). 0+0+20+0 = 20.); OpenCage Geocoding API 35 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Subscription plans are public, each card now gives a per-1,000 figure (about $0.17 on X-Small to $0.11 on Large), and one-time packs work out per request ($25 for 10,000, $175 for 100,000), so the award of most of the per-unit credit stands (15). A 2,500-a-day free trial with no card, for testing only (20). Signup is a browser flow (0).)
- Maintenance & community, OpenCage Geocoding API +13: NextBillion.ai 73 (MCP server 0.5.3 on 30 October 2026 (30). Eleven tagged MCP releases between 7 October and 30 October, adding hosted mode, truck routing and geometry tools (20). Support by email, a public MCP repository with a changelog, but no public API changelog (8). The MCP server isn't in the official MCP registry, and we didn't check the mobile SDK versions (7). The MCP repository runs CI with unit and end-to-end tests (8). 30+20+8+7+8 = 73.); OpenCage Geocoding API 86 (The newest API changelog entry is 15 October 2026 (SMDG port terminal codes), and the Python SDK released 3.5.0 on 28 October 2026, both within 30 days (30). Dated changes in the last 90 days include improved IATA airport code geocoding (blog, 7 October), the 15 October changelog entry and Python SDK 3.5.0, with spreadsheet upload improvements on 14 August (20). Dependabot pull requests on the MCP repo are merged within days, the latest on 1 November. We couldn't see issue reply times from git (15). In the official MCP registry as io.github.OpenCageData/opencage-geocoding-mcp, and the Python SDK is current at 3.5.0 (15). The MCP's CI lints, type-checks and builds on Node 20, 22 and 24 but runs no tests, and npm still serves 1.0.3 from 11 September 2025 while the repo is at 1.0.5 (6).)
- Agent ergonomics, OpenCage Geocoding API +9: NextBillion.ai 77 (MCP reading, since the hosted server is the agent surface. 27 tools, four of them for documentation and seven local geometry tools, with shapes simplified to a 500-vertex budget to save context (18). limit, types, country, bbox and circle filters, and batch geocoding of up to 100 queries (16). The error table explains each code, and the MCP masks the key in error text (15). Every API tool is marked readOnlyHint, idempotentHint and not destructive in the source (18). Few required parameters and explicit latitude and longitude objects, but no official server-side SDK, only mobile and web map SDKs (10). 18+16+15+18+10 = 77.); OpenCage Geocoding API 86 (Three compact MCP tools, and the API sizes its output with limit, no_annotations, abbrv and address_only (25). countrycode, bounds, proximity and min_confidence narrow results. No pagination, which a geocoder rarely needs (18). Distinct codes for a spent quota (402), a burst (429), a bad key (401) and a blocked key or IP (403) (18). Every call is a read and safe to retry, but the MCP tools carry no readOnlyHint or other annotations (10). One required parameter, sensible defaults, and official Python (3.5.0) and JavaScript (2.2.0) clients (15).)