# geolith vs Photon

> Photon is an open-source, search-as-you-type geocoder for OpenStreetMap, with a public instance that asks users to be fair and throttles extensive use (photon.komoot.io, read 22 Oct 2026). On the same India data (20 Oct 2026, 200 queries per set) geolith’s first result was right for 82.5% of autocomplete queries against Photon’s 42.5%, and 93.0% of Overture POIs against 12.5%. Photon was slightly ahead on OSM POIs: 85.5% against geolith’s 84.5%.

## Side by side

| | geolith | Photon |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 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 with fair use; or self-host |
| Storing results | Allowed on every plan, no extra fee | Not restricted by Photon itself; ODbL applies |
| Autocomplete | /v1/autocomplete, same price as any request | Yes, search-as-you-type is its core use |
| Self-hosting | One static .glx file, no database | Java service with a search index you import |
| India top-1: OSM places | 95.0% | 80.5% |
| India top-1: OSM addresses | 95.0% | 88.5% |
| India top-1: OSM POIs | 84.5% | 85.5% |
| India top-1: Overture POIs | 93.0% | 12.5% |
| India top-1: Autocomplete | 82.5% | 42.5% |
| India top-1: Near a point | 96.0% | 52.0% |
| India top-1: Reverse | 99.5% | 98.5% |
| Feature probes passed | 24 of 25 | 19 of 25 |

Vendor pricing and policy read from their public pages on 2026-10-22.

## What is Photon?

Photon is an open-source, search-as-you-type geocoder for OpenStreetMap data, built on a Java service with a search index. A public instance exists for fair use.

## Where Photon is strong

Photon is simple to call, multilingual and good at OSM POIs; it narrowly beat geolith on that set. If you already run it and only need OSM data, it is a reasonable choice.

## Where geolith differs

geolith adds Overture places, ranks autocomplete with prefix matching on the last word, and serves from one static file with no search cluster to run.

## Questions

### Can I use the public Photon instance for my app?

Its page asks users to be fair and says extensive usage will be throttled, with no availability guarantee. Production traffic needs your own instance or a hosted API.

### Which is more accurate?

In our India run geolith was ahead of Photon on 6 of 7 sets; Photon led on OSM POIs (85.5% vs 84.5%).

## Guides

- https://geolith.app/guides/nominatim-alternatives-production

## Sources

1. [geolith search benchmarks: engines](https://docs.geolith.app/search/benchmarks/engines), geolith (read 2026-10-22)

Get a free API key (100,000 requests a month): https://console.geolith.app/signup