# Nominatim vs TomTom Maps APIs + MCP (slim)

> Nominatim scores 63.5 (B) to TomTom Maps's 45.9 (E) for geocoding. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-tomtom.md (~4,050 tokens) · this version ~1,980 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-tomtom.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-tomtom
- 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)

Nominatim scores 63.5 (B) on agent readiness against TomTom Maps APIs + MCP's 45.9 (E), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. TomTom Maps APIs + MCP leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community. Both do geocoding.

- Nominatim: B 63.5, rank #513 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nominatim.min.md
- TomTom Maps APIs + MCP: E 45.9, rank #1185 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tomtom.min.md
- Nominatim, good for Self-hosted worldwide geocoding from OpenStreetMap data with no per-call cost or storage limits beyond ODbL. Ahead on Reliability, 82 against 15; Payments & pricing, 60 against 25. Also No key needed to call it; Open source; No incidents deducted, where TomTom Maps APIs + MCP loses 6 points for them.
- TomTom Maps APIs + MCP, good for Drive planning with live traffic, EV charging and reachable range. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 71 against 51; Maintenance & community, 86 against 60. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; Runs on your own machine; Free to start without a card.

| Category | Nominatim | TomTom Maps APIs + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 82 | 15 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 51 | 71 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 75 | 78 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 50 | 51 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 25 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 60 | 86 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 59 | 58 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Nominatim | TomTom Maps APIs + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Nominatim project (osm-search) | TomTom |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.tomtom.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| Licence | GPL-3.0-or-later | Apache-2.0 (MCP server) |
| Tools exposed | none | 13 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-14 | 2026-11-02 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 2.1k PyPI/wk | 55 stars, 996 npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, Nominatim +67: 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.); 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.)
- Payments & pricing, Nominatim +35: 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.); 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.)
- Maintenance & community, TomTom Maps APIs + MCP +26: 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.); 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.)
- Schema & documentation, TomTom Maps APIs + MCP +20: Nominatim 51 (No OpenAPI or machine-readable contract (0). nominatim.org/llms.txt returns 404, and the manual is HTML, though its Markdown sources sit in the repository's docs folder (0). The API reference explains each endpoint and parameter and when not to use one, such as the details endpoint being for debugging (14). Types, enums and limits are documented, such as format, layer and limit (at most 40), but there's no schema to validate against (12). Example queries and outputs per endpoint, with errors described in prose (10). A versioned manual per release, a ChangeLog and a migration guide (15). 0+0+14+12+10+15 = 51.); 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.)