# Radar vs Stadia Maps

> Stadia Maps scores 65.2 (B) to Radar's 53.3 (D) for geocoding. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/radar-vs-stadia-maps
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/radar-vs-stadia-maps.md (~2,300 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/radar-vs-stadia-maps.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/radar-vs-stadia-maps.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Stadia Maps scores 65.2 (B) on agent readiness against Radar's 53.3 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Radar leads on reliability and security & auth. Both do geocoding.

- Radar: grade D, 53.3/100, rank #713 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/radar.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/radar.json
- Stadia Maps: grade B, 65.2/100, rank #325 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/stadia-maps.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/stadia-maps.json
- Best maps, geocoding and places APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/maps/index.md
- All 78 maps comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/maps/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Radar (D)

Good for: A company that already has a Radar contract, or wants geofencing and trip tracking with geocoding and routing on one key.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 70 against 63
- Security & auth, 56 against 40

Watch for: The pricing page says Radar has no free tier and every plan is an annual commitment set by quote

### Stadia Maps (B)

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

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 86 against 50
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 65
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 10
- Transparency & trust, 76 against 55

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: Free plan is for development, testing and demos only


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Radar | Stadia Maps | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 63 | Radar +7 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 50 | 86 | Stadia Maps +36 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 80 | Stadia Maps +15 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 56 | 40 | Radar +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 10 | 40 | Stadia Maps +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 80 | Stadia Maps +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 55 | 76 | Stadia Maps +21 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **53.3 · D** | **65.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Radar | Stadia Maps |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Radar Labs | Stadia Maps |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.radar.io/v1` | `https://api.stadiamaps.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| Price for geocoding | not published | $0.40 per 1,000 requests |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Radar's Terms of Use. The web SDK in radarlabs/radar-sdk-js is Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause (MCP server) |
| Tools exposed | none | 6 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | 2023-05-24 | 2026-03-18 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-05-13 | 2026-10-01 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 23 stars, 6.1k npm/wk, 192 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Radar.** Radar documents 36 REST operations in Markdown with a rate limit on each, and its status feed shows two short API incidents in 90 days. Access is sales-led. The pricing page says there is no free tier, every plan is an annual commitment, and no OpenAPI description or API changelog was found.

**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

### Radar

1. Send the key in the `Authorization` header with no `Bearer` prefix, and call `https://api.radar.io/v1`, not radar.com
2. Use a publishable key for geocoding, search and routing. Keep the secret key for users, trips, geofences and beacons
3. Call `/v1/search/autocomplete` for partial addresses and place names. `/v1/geocode/forward` is documented as best for complete addresses
4. Set `units=metric` on routing calls. The default is imperial, with distances in feet
5. Treat 429 as one of three things (rate limit, no state change or selective throttling) and 402 as usage exceeded. No Retry-After header is documented
6. Do not keep geocoding, autocomplete or place results for more than 30 days

### 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, Radar or Stadia Maps?

Stadia Maps scores 65.2 (B) on agent readiness against Radar's 53.3 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Radar leads on reliability and security & auth.

### Do Radar and Stadia Maps need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Radar and Stadia Maps without installing anything?

Yes. Radar has a hosted endpoint at https://api.radar.io/v1 and Stadia Maps at https://api.stadiamaps.com.


## For agents

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

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