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geolith vs Nominatim
Nominatim is the OpenStreetMap geocoder, and its public instance allows an absolute maximum of 1 request per second, forbids client-side autocomplete and discourages bulk geocoding (OSMF usage policy, read 22 Oct 2026). On the same India data in Docker (20 Oct 2026, 200 queries per set) geolith’s first result was right for 95.0% of OSM addresses against Nominatim’s 50.5%, and 93.0% of Overture POIs against 6.0%. Nominatim scored 100% on reverse geocoding, geolith 99.5%.
What is Nominatim?
Nominatim is the open-source geocoder for OpenStreetMap data, maintained by the OpenStreetMap community. The OpenStreetMap Foundation runs a free public instance at nominatim.openstreetmap.org for light use under a usage policy; production apps run their own instance or use a hosted geocoder.
“No heavy uses (an absolute maximum of 1 request per second).”
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Side by side
| geolith | Nominatim | |
|---|---|---|
| Data | OpenStreetMap + Overture Maps | OpenStreetMap |
| Hosted pricing | Free 100,000 requests/month; Starter $19 (1M); Growth $99 (7.5M); Scale $299 (25M) | Public instance free under the OSMF usage policy; or self-host |
| Storing results | Allowed on every plan, no extra fee | Results must be cached on your side (policy) |
| Autocomplete | /v1/autocomplete, same price as any request | Not supported; client-side autocomplete on the public API is forbidden |
| Self-hosting | One static .glx file, no database | PostgreSQL/PostGIS database with a full import |
| Public API rate | Per plan quota | Absolute maximum 1 request per second |
| India top-1: OSM places | 95.0% | 85.0% |
| India top-1: OSM addresses | 95.0% | 50.5% |
| India top-1: OSM POIs | 84.5% | 68.5% |
| India top-1: Overture POIs | 93.0% | 6.0% |
| India top-1: Autocomplete | 82.5% | n/a (no Nominatim endpoint) |
| India top-1: Near a point | 96.0% | 44.5% |
| India top-1: Reverse | 99.5% | 100% |
| Feature probes passed | 24 of 25 | 21 of 25 |
Vendor pricing and policies read from their public pages on 2026-10-22. Accuracy figures are from our India benchmark (same data, Docker, 20 Oct 2026) and appear only where we measured.
Detail
Credit where due
Nominatim is mature, open source and the reference geocoder for OpenStreetMap. Its reverse geocoding was the best in our India run, and the OSMF runs the public instance for free.
Detail
Why teams move off the public API
The usage policy is written for light use: one request per second, a valid User-Agent, no autocomplete, single-threaded bulk jobs only, and it can change without notice. A product with real traffic needs its own instance or a hosted service.
Guides
See it in code
Questions
geolith vs Nominatim: questions
- Can I use the public Nominatim API in production?
- Only within the OSMF usage policy: at most 1 request per second, a valid User-Agent, no autocomplete, and cached results. Heavy use gets blocked.
- Is geolith built on Nominatim?
- No. geolith has its own index format (.glx) and ranking, and adds Overture Maps data to OpenStreetMap.
Sources
- Nominatim Usage Policy, OpenStreetMap Foundation (read 2026-10-22)
- geolith search benchmarks: engines, geolith (read 2026-10-22)
Geocode your first address in a minute.
100,000 requests a month free. Commercial use with attribution. No card.