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I want to use geo coding services in my site which are the APIs available for this, Java based solutions will be preferred and I want to use this in a commercial project so please suggest appropriate options i.e. APIs which can be used in such projects freely..

Before asking this question I have tried searching on net and found that few popular geoCoding APIs are the ones from Google and yahoo. And few answers in SO suggest using Google API (Which seems very popular one), before deciding I want to know is their any other option and what are the available solutions for this ?

Even A Link to some blog/ site which contains detailed analysis of all these sites will be of great help.

Amit
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5 Answers5

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Available Solutions for the Address / ZipCode to (latitude, longitude) mapping are ...

Google API, http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/geocoding/ ) The most popular due to Google’s name. Extensive support available on the internet (less development time). Alas! not available freely for commercial usage. The free version has 2500 queries/day limitations. (http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/geocoding/) There is one clause in “Usage Terms” which says the result must be displayed in google maps, reference http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/geocoding/#GeocodingRequests terms and conditions are mentioned here. http://code.google.com/apis/maps/terms.html#section_10_12

Nominatium, (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim ) A less common organization which provides an open source, free ware solution for the address to (latitude, longitude) mapping. Can be also used in commercial projects. Their are no restrictions for number of queries per day and no hidden clauses in “usage terms”. Since the organization itself is not much popular, less support is available.

Yahoo API, http://developer.yahoo.com/geo/placefinder/ Another popular API like google’s but some what more available. supports upto 50000 requests per day. Like google extensive support is available. Yahoo encourages us to use the “powered by yahoo logo” but doesn’t force us for that. ( http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/api/api-2140.html ) Can be used for commercial purposes (I have read Yahoo Terms and doesn't find any clause which restricts us in doing that, reference http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/maps/mapsapi/mapsapi-2141.html ).

YQL (Yahoo Query language see:- http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/ ) A SQl based query language which queries yahoo web service. for example if we have a zip code we can write a YQL as [ select centroid from geo.places where text="Enter some pin code here"]. Yahoo encourages us to use YQL in commercial applications. (http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/faq/ ) Most number of allowed queries as compared to all other options i.e. 20,000 calls/hour/IP and 100,000 calls/day/key. (see http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/faq/ ), Support available for YQL is quite good, see the links.

Amit
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    If you've already answered it a few times, then it is preferable to **link** to those questions instead, ideally voting to close as duplicate – Marc Gravell Nov 18 '11 at 10:45
  • @Amit Do you know mapquest (http://devblog.mapquest.com/2011/11/17/no-preset-limit-on-free-map-api-transactions)? Can you talk about it – Fido Jan 13 '13 at 09:00
  • @Fido I have never used that. You can edit my answer and add information about MapQuest... – Amit Oct 09 '14 at 08:45
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    Google Maps API is no longer the best. In fact it is by far the most expensive geocode service available now. – Valachio Jul 24 '18 at 23:52
  • Do these Yahoo options still exist? It's not listed in their [APIs](https://developer.yahoo.com/api/) and if you search https://developer.yahoo.com/ for YQL or geocode nothing come sup. – Brad Jun 13 '19 at 22:41
  • Your Yahoo! API link no longer exists :( – Bruno Leveque Dec 22 '21 at 00:22
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This alternative API for french adresses : https://adresse.data.gouv.fr/api

L.G
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Gisgraphy is a alternative to Nominatim, a geocoding service on top of OpenStreetMap data. They provide a hosted solution - and you can install their software for free.

More information at http://www.gisgraphy.com/

scai
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Tobias
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Mapquest Open Api has a geocoding service that uses OSM data.

http://open.mapquestapi.com/

Patrick Jackson
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Googles services are free up untill a certain limit (which actually is quite hard to hit) and the API is very friendly to work with. I am using it in a couple of applications myself and it works flawlessly and is extremely fast

Jan Dragsbaek
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    free for certain uses. There are limitations. Be sure to read the TOS. – Patrick Jackson Apr 27 '13 at 23:22
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    It seems you need to enable billing if you want to do more than one request per day:`**Requests quota limit** - Enter a number between 0 and 1. To increase this maximum, enable billing for this project.` – ban-geoengineering Jan 30 '19 at 17:56
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    This was also 7 years ago. Surely things has changed. I will go through my posts and update them accordingly. – Jan Dragsbaek Mar 01 '19 at 13:01
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    In 2021 there are no free Google Geocoding requests at all any more, see https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/usage-and-billing – The Godfather Oct 22 '21 at 09:37