Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Geocode Earth VS Mapcode

Compare Geocode Earth VS Mapcode and see what are their differences

Geocode Earth logo Geocode Earth

Build smarter location experiences with our fast, accurate & affordable geocoding solutions.

Mapcode logo Mapcode

Short addresses for anywhere on Earth
  • Geocode Earth Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-06-24

Geocode Earth provide quality Address Autocomplete, Reverse Geocoding & Place Geocoding solutions to small-to-medium sized businesses.

The company is run by the team behind the popular open-source geocoding engine Pelias, they are committed to preserving User Privacy and have been publishing Open Source GIS software since 2014.

Discounts are available for non-profit, academic & open-source projects

Not present

Geocode Earth

$ Details
paid Free Trial $100.0 / Monthly
Platforms
REST API Browser JavaScript Node JS
Release Date
2018 January

Mapcode

Pricing URL
-
$ Details
-
Platforms
-
Release Date
-

Geocode Earth features and specs

  • Address Autocomplete
  • Places Autocomplete
  • Reverse Geocoding
  • Structured Geocoding
  • Batch Geocoding
  • Geocoding API
  • Address Interpolation
  • Street Intersections
  • ZIP Code Geocoding
  • OpenStreetMap Data
  • Geonames Data
  • US Census Data

Mapcode features and specs

  • Short and simple codes
    Mapcodes are typically much shorter than latitude/longitude coordinates or what3words phrases, making them easy to write down, remember, and communicate verbally or via text.
  • Open and free system
    The Mapcode system is open-source and free to use without licensing fees, allowing developers and organizations to integrate it into their own applications without cost barriers.
  • Works well in addressless regions
    Mapcode is particularly useful in areas without formal street addressing systems, such as rural or developing regions, helping with navigation, deliveries, and emergency services.
  • Localized short codes
    Mapcode offers context-based shorter codes for locations within a specific territory or country, so locals can use even shorter codes when the country context is already known.
  • Offline functionality
    Mapcodes can be converted to coordinates without needing an internet connection once the algorithm or app is installed, useful in areas with poor connectivity.

Possible disadvantages of Mapcode

  • Limited public awareness
    Compared to alternatives like what3words or standard GPS coordinates, Mapcode has much lower brand recognition and adoption among the general public and businesses.
  • Less intuitive than natural language systems
    Unlike what3words which uses memorable word combinations, Mapcode uses alphanumeric strings that can be less intuitive or memorable for everyday users.
  • Fewer integrations
    Mapcode has fewer integrations with major mapping platforms, delivery services, and consumer apps compared to more widely adopted geolocation systems.
  • Potential for confusion with context codes
    The need to sometimes specify a country or territory context for shorter codes can add complexity and lead to confusion if the context is not clear or known to the user.
  • Limited ecosystem and support
    With a smaller user base and developer community, there are fewer third-party tools, tutorials, and community support resources compared to more mainstream location-encoding systems.

Geocode Earth videos

Address Autocomplete

Mapcode videos

No Mapcode videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Geocode Earth and Mapcode)
Maps
75 75%
25% 25
Geolocation API
100 100%
0% 0
Web Mapping
0 0%
100% 100
Geolocation
100 100%
0% 0

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing Geocode Earth and Mapcode.

What's the story behind your product?

Geocode Earth's answer

Geocode Earth was founded after the core geocoding team left Mapzen after its shutdown in 2017. After years of building open-source geocoding software, we knew we had the expertice and connections to build better geocoding for everyone.

What makes your product unique?

Geocode Earth's answer

We are a founder-owned small business with an experienced team. We design our tools to have a privacy focus (we don't sell, or even keep, any data that could be considered sensitive, PII, etc). When you reach out to us, you'll get a real human support response, not AI.

Finally we have a commitment to open source: we contribute heavily back to both the open data projects that power our service, and to software like Pelias (which we created).

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

Geocode Earth's answer

Our commitment to privacy (we do not sell or even store any significant information about your use of our service), our fast, knowledgeable, human support team, and our fast and accurate services.

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Geocode Earth and Mapcode

Geocode Earth Reviews

18 Top Google Places API Alternatives for Points of Interest Data in 2022
Geocode Earth offers location data, geocoding and content localisation features. You can use these to Add geographic search features to your website or app. Since its service uses open data, you can store search results within your own database.
Source: traveltime.com

Mapcode Reviews

We have no reviews of Mapcode yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Geocode Earth seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 6 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Geocode Earth mentions (6)

  • Geocoding APIs compared: Pricing, free tiers and terms of use
    Geocoding is a really fun (and sometimes frustrating) problem I've been lucky enough to have been working to solve for over 10 years now. I joined Mapzen in 2015 which ostensibly was part of a Samsung startup accelerator, but looking back, it's more descriptive to say it was an open-source mapping software R&D lab. We built what is now foundational open-source geospatial tools like the Pelias geocoder (my team)... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Serverless maps at 1/700 the cost of Google Maps API
    As the developer of this system, I concur with this; Protomaps is focused on map tiles, and can be used with other solutions such as http://geocode.earth for search. A small detail: I don't believe this is the absolute cheapest way to deliver map tiles. Renting an unmetered bandwidth server is always going to be the cheapest way to host content, but unmanaged servers don't give you SSL termination, infinite... - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
  • Is there a free version / alternative of google places api?
    The honest truth is that google places is simply the best in the world, and the 2nd place is far behind. that's probably foursquare. After that, mapbox, then mapquest, then https://geocode.earth/. All of those are paid. Source: about 4 years ago
  • Mantle โ€“ Serverless Maps Using Lambda or Cloudflare Workers
    The stack I describe in the post is only for map tiles - Map tiles are a good fit for CDNs because the input space is small (just Z/X/Y coordinates on a square grid) and thus very cacheable. Geocoding is a very different problem because the input space - human language - is much, much larger, and answering queries quickly to support features like autocomplete really requires a server with hot data in memory. One... - Source: Hacker News / over 4 years ago
  • Positionstack (by APILayer) Geocoding-API down for over 14 days, with no ETA
    If anyone comes across this looking for an alternative, we can help at Geocode Earth (https://geocode.earth). We're a small independent company that has been working on geocoding since 2013, first as part of Mapzen(https://mapzen.com), and then with our own self-funded business after Mapzen shut down at the start of 2018. Our core software, the Pelias Geocoder (https://pelias.io) is open source, and ironically we... - Source: Hacker News / over 4 years ago
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Mapcode mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Mapcode yet. Tracking of Mapcode recommendations started around Jul 2026.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Geocode Earth and Mapcode, you can also consider the following products

Algolia Places - Intelligent address autocomplete for any <input>

Google Maps - Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

OpenCage Geocoder - Easy, Open, Worldwide, Affordable Geocoding.

PlaceKit - Worldwide geocoding API and address autocomplete, store locator, and two-way geocoding for your apps.

Mapbox - An open source mapping platform for custom designed maps. Our APIs and SDKs are the building blocks to integrate location into any mobile or web app.

what3words - Geocoding system for the simple communication of locations with a resolution of 3 m