Need the benefits of open data without the complexity?
Using open data via OpenCage can significantly reduce your costs
The major differences between OpenCage and Nominatim
- We use Nominatim, but we also use other open geocoders
- We provide enterprise level reliability
- We enhance the geocoding results with additional information
Nominatim, and more
First up, let's be clear:
we love Nominatim.
Nominatim is one of the main geocoders we run behind our API.
- We help fund the work on Nominatim.
- We contribute code fixes back. Our CTO is one of the top two Nominatim code contributors of all time.
- We are pround corporate members of the OpenStreetMap Foundation.
- We do our part to give back to the open data and open source communities.
But ... we ALSO run many other geocoders based on open data.
Why?
The same reason you don't eat all your meals with a spoon.
Different tools are better for different tasks.
Different geocoders
and different datasets are better for different types of queries.
Using open data has many benefits, doing it via OpenCage means one less thing for us to maintain.
Robert Theml
·
Director
·
SIXT Share
Enterprise level reliability
Using OpenStreetMap's free public Nominatim service
for anything other than a small hobby project, is against
the official OSM usage policy.
No SLA, limited support, not built for production.
Running your own instance of Nominatim
avoids that problem.
But it trades one problem for another: you now own the burden
of keeping the software and the underlying OSM data current, forever.
We run multiple, fully-redundant data centers,
independently monitored (see
our status dashboard),
serving thousands of customers worldwide. You don't have to build
that reliability yourself.
Is self-hosting actually cheaper?
It depends,
but it's worth doing the full accounting:
- Server/infrastructure costs: a Nominatim install needs a beefy, well-provisioned server (the official recommendation is a substantial amount of RAM and fast SSD storage). This alone is a real, ongoing cost, not a one-time setup fee.
- Initial import time: importing a large dataset into Nominatim typically takes many hours to a few days of machine time, plus the engineering time to get it right the first time.
- Ongoing maintenance: keeping the OSM data updated (diffs/replication), applying software updates, and handling anything that breaks along the way is an ongoing time cost, not a one-off.
- Engineering opportunity cost: for most organisations, engineering time is the most expensive resource you have. Every hour spent on infrastructure is an hour not spent on your actual product.
When self-hosting makes sense
To be fair, self-hosting isn't always the wrong call.
It's usually the right one if:
- You need it fully air-gapped. No external network calls at all, for security, compliance, or data-sovereignty reasons.
- You're at extreme scale where the marginal cost per request genuinely outweighs the ongoing infrastructure and engineering overhead, and you already have a team that can operate this kind of system as a core competency.
- You need to modify the geocoder itself in ways that go beyond what any hosted API can offer.
More is more
We enhance our results with annotations (information like timezones, calling codes, FIPS codes, NUTS codes, currency, what3words, time of sunrise/sunset, and more), well formatted address strings, and confidence scores.
The end result is we save you expensive developer time and effort.
See our
Technical Migration Guide
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there an easy way to test OpenCage?
Yes, try
our demo page,
or register for a free-trial
(requires just an email, takes 1 min).
Does OpenCage require a long-term commitment?
No, cancel whenever you like for any reason.
What does OpenCage do to support the OpenStreetMap community?
A lot! We're proud to be corporate members of the OSM Foundation, sponsor events,
and fund the development of Nominatim.
Learn more about our efforts.
Satisfied OpenCage Customers
2,500 geocoding API requests/day - No credit card required