I need to do geocode lookups so that I can show members of my website other members who are in their vicinity. My approach will be to obtain their latitude and longitude from their mobile device and then do a proximity calculation using the Haversine formula. If they won't allow me to use their location or if they're on a computer, I'll do a geocode lookup using either the postal code or city/region/country they provided when they signed up to obtain their latitude and longitude.
I want to obtain global data, i.e. not just North America and Europe, but Asia and South and Central America if possible. My platform is Python and Django. I can't spend a lot of money. I'd also like to be able to obtain some type of support (phone, email, chat).
I've done a brief assessment of the following geocode services and am wondering if there's anyone else I should consider?
- Cloudmade: Yes. They appear to meet my requirements.
- MapQuest: Yes. They appear to meet my requirements.
- Google: No. Their terms state that I have to display a map which I don't want to do.
- Yahoo: No. Their business doesn't depend on this service. Who knows how long it will be around?
- Microsoft: No. Bing may get sold. Again, Microsoft doesn't rely on this service so I consider them too risky.
- ArcGIS: No. They meet my requirements but they cost at least $1,500 for their Desktop product.
- deCarta: No. Their service looks good but their site says they don't have geocode data for Africa, Asia, and most of South and Central America.
- Cartodb: Yes. They appear to meet my requirements.
- Texas A&M Geocoding Services: No. Their data appears to be U.S.-centric.
- Data Science Toolkit: No. Support seems questionable.
- NetAcuity: No. This is overkill for my purposes and would likely be far too expensive.
- MaxMind GeoIP: No. This requires IP addresses which aren't always accurate.
- TwoFishes: No. This isn't a commercial product. No support.
- Boundless: No. Another expensive enterprise-grade product.
- Pitney Bowes: No. Enterprise-grade
Would Cloudmade and MapQuest be my best bets? Is there anyone else I should be looking at?
Best Answer
MapBox also provides geocoding as part of their REST API and is probably worth considering.
Mapbox API