# Nominatim vs Woosmap

> Nominatim scores 63.5 (B) to Woosmap's 59.4 (C) for geocoding. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-woosmap
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-woosmap.md (~4,050 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Nominatim scores 63.5 (B) on agent readiness against Woosmap's 59.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Woosmap leads on schema & documentation. Both do geocoding.

- Nominatim: grade B, 63.5/100, rank #511 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nominatim.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nominatim.json
- Woosmap: grade C, 59.4/100, rank #704 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/woosmap.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/woosmap.json
- Best maps, geocoding and places APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/maps/index.md
- All 153 maps comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/maps/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Nominatim (B)

Good for: Self-hosted worldwide geocoding from OpenStreetMap data with no per-call cost or storage limits beyond ODbL.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 50 against 43
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 60 against 26
- Transparency & trust, 59 against 54

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source

Watch for: No OpenAPI spec and no llms.txt

### Woosmap (C)

Good 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:
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 51

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No public changelog or release notes for the APIs


## Why the edge

### Maintenance & community: Nominatim +34

- 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.
- Woosmap (26): No dated API release, changelog or release note found. The newest dated activity we saw is the public woosmap-samples repository on 16 September 2026, which isn't an API release (10). No dated changes to count in the last 90 days (0). Support by email and a support centre, with no public changelog (5). Official JavaScript, iOS and Android SDKs exist, but we couldn't check their versions because the GitHub API was rate-limited and two SDK repository names didn't resolve; the MCP server isn't in the official MCP registry (8). The samples carry tests, per the rate-limits page (3). 10+0+5+8+3 = 26.

### Schema & documentation: Woosmap +30

- 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.
- 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.

### Payments & pricing: Nominatim +30

- 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.
- Woosmap (30): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plans and per-API tier breakpoints are public, but per-request prices sit in a script-driven calculator we couldn't read, so plan-only credit (10). Free plan up to 10,000 requests a month with 'No Credit Card Required' (20). A person signs up and creates a key in the console (0). 0+10+20+0 = 30.

### Security & auth: Nominatim +7

- Nominatim (50): The server has no authentication of its own; an operator puts it behind their own proxy. The public instance takes no key and identifies callers by User-Agent or Referer (5). Every endpoint reads, so there's nothing to approve (18). Results are OpenStreetMap names and tags, community-edited text, with no prompt-injection guidance (7). Query logging to a file is available through NOMINATIM_LOG_FILE and off by default (8). SECURITY.md gives security@nominatim.org, an acknowledgement within 3 work days, a disclosure process and two years of security updates per release. No bug bounty (12). 5+18+7+8+12 = 50.
- 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.

### Transparency & trust: Nominatim +5

- Nominatim (59): Open source, GPL-3.0-or-later for the Python code, GPL-2.0 for other files and Apache-2.0 for the osm2pgsql Lua styles (30). A self-hosted server keeps data where the operator runs it. The public instance falls under the OSMF privacy policy and asks users not to send personal data. We didn't read the OSMF policy itself (20). SECURITY.md lists the end of security support for each release line with dates, and a migration guide covers each version (16). No telemetry found in the settings, and request logging is opt-in (15). 30+20+16+15 = 81.
- 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.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Nominatim | Woosmap | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 82 | 78 | Nominatim +4 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 51 | 81 | Woosmap +30 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 76 | Woosmap +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 50 | 43 | Nominatim +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 30 | Nominatim +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 26 | Nominatim +34 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 54 | Nominatim +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.5 · B** | **59.4 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Nominatim | Woosmap |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Nominatim project (osm-search) | WOOSMAP SAS |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.woosmap.com/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | GPL-3.0-or-later | none |
| Tools exposed | none | 9 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-14 | none |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2024-07-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 2.1k PyPI/wk | none |

## Verdicts

**Nominatim.** Nominatim is the open-source OpenStreetMap geocoder, free to run with a documented search, reverse and lookup API, tested releases and two years of security support per release. It has no OpenAPI spec, no built-in authentication, and the public instance allows one request a second and restricts LLM-suggested use, so agents at scale need their own server.

**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

### Nominatim

1. Don't send bulk or repeated queries to nominatim.openstreetmap.org; keep to one request a second, cache results and set an identifying User-Agent
2. Tell the user about the OSMF usage policy before suggesting the public instance, as the policy requires
3. For regular or large jobs, run your own Nominatim or use a commercial provider listed on the Nominatim wiki
4. Pass format=jsonv2 or geojson and limit, since omitting format sends the request to the web UI
5. Attribute OpenStreetMap and respect the ODbL share-alike terms when storing results

### 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, Nominatim or Woosmap?

Nominatim scores 63.5 (B) on agent readiness against Woosmap's 59.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Woosmap leads on schema & documentation.

### Do Nominatim and Woosmap need an API key?

Nominatim needs no key. Woosmap needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Nominatim and Woosmap without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Nominatim. Woosmap has a hosted endpoint at https://api.woosmap.com/mcp.

### Are Nominatim and Woosmap open source?

Nominatim is open source (GPL-3.0-or-later). No open-source release is listed for Woosmap.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-woosmap.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nominatim-vs-woosmap.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "nominatim", "b": "woosmap"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare nominatim woosmap`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/nominatim.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/woosmap.json

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp