Obtain a client's location coordinates through the browser's geolocation API, or resolve through IP address from the server?

Question

I'm wondering which method to go with for fairly accurate locationing, + scalability and speed.

It seems Django's Geoip has a limited number of addresses. And IPs are some times redirected to the ISP generated address. The advantage of using GeoIP would be that I don't have to fiddle around client-side. Would using IP, and relying on Maxmind be a practical hinderance?

On the other hand, using the browser's Geolocation API, I believe I can obtain a much more accurate location, but only if it's first "Allow[ed]" by the client. It would then involve sending the coordinates to the backend for further processing using something like Geodjango to resolve the coordinates.

What am I missing? Can someone shed some light on the differences? Does it not matter much?

Answer 1

All depends on how accurate you need your application to be.

• If you don't care about accuracy, use GeoIP (described as hit-or-miss)
• If you care about accuracy, go with the Geolocation API option.

So for your specific case, go with the second option.