Google Maps Platform • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Maps Platform

#121

Post by chrishynes » Thu, May 03, 2018, 12:25 AM UTC

corny wrote: post #99

NelsonMinar wrote: post #71

Mapbox has an excellent alternative map platform based largely but not entirely on OpenStreetMap data. Mapbox GL JS in particular is a joy to work with and extend. https://www.mapbox.com/ It's not free, but it's very easy to use and the pricing is roughly 1/10th of Google's when you get past the free tier: https://www.mapbox.com/pricing/ Mapzen used to be an alternative but sadly they shut down. However many of their…

I'm in the process of comparing Mapbox with Google Maps Platform. The usage would be for large full-screen maps with lots of interaction. Comparing map loads/views is not apples to apples. Google counts a single map "load" similar to a page view [1]. The number of tiles loaded doesn't influence cost. With Mapbox, a map "view" is 4-15 tiles (depending on how they're styled) [2]. [1] https://developers.google.com/maps/…

That Mapbox pricing page seems to be talking about custom maps... What are the built-in styles considered?

https://www.mapbox.com/api-documentation/#styles

Re: Google Maps Platform

#122

Post by mtmail » Thu, May 03, 2018, 12:32 AM UTC

jakecopp wrote: post #106

reustle wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I contribute to Google maps a lot and I've looked into contributing to open street maps but the options seemed pretty clunky. I recommend mapbox to all of my clients over Google maps.

Just click the edit button on https://www.openstreetmap.org/ , I find the interface quite nice. It's quite addictive! That being said, I don't know of a similarly easy to use editor on Android for simple things like adding opening hours or addresses.

http://vespucci.io/ is active developed and pretty powerful. For simply adding opening hours or a phone number I use https://maps.me/download/ (iOS, Android).

Re: Google Maps Platform

#123

Post by dskendall » Thu, May 03, 2018, 12:32 AM UTC

Wow, this is a massive price increase... free tier cut from 750,000 dynamic map loads per month to 56,571! With new prices it'd cost $4,023/mo to pay for what used to be free. Another way of putting it: used to get 25,000 free dynamic map loads per day, now only get 1,886 free map loads per day. 92% less for free. And this is assuming you use the full $200 credit only for the dynamic map loads and not partially for the other Google Maps APIs.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#124

Post by akura » Thu, May 03, 2018, 12:35 AM UTC

lukeqsee wrote: post #117

akura wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just starting a side project that uses similar, i think it's the pricing around autocomplete and places information that seems like the most painful part to me. Currently I'm using it to search and add points on a map, it seems like it could really add up

There are a few free alternatives to Google: arcgis has a free place suggestions API: https://developers.arcgis.com/rest/geocode/api-reference/geo... OpenCageData is pretty good for geocoding with a good free tier. My company https://stadiamaps.com does map tiles at very generous tiers.

Thanks for the suggestions! Will definitely have a look

Re: Google Maps Platform

#125

Post by sleemanj » Thu, May 03, 2018, 12:44 AM UTC

Gah, this is so confusing, I've got small sites developed for clients many many years old running various maps based stuff off API Keys in my account, now I have to add MY billing information to them or get the client to set themselves up a google cloud platform account and developer and project and keys and ......

Good grief, that's totally impractical to have website administrators, my clients, to do that, even I as a seasoned developer hate trying to navigate around the complex labyrinth that is the Google developer console stuff.

It's all so complicated. I just want a page I can point my customer to, "go here, type in your domain name, enter your credit card number in case you need to be billed by Google for usage, and tell me the API key it spits out".

On top of that, it's still of course totally open to abuse and quota theft, referer checking is not security. I can see a burgeoning black market in api keys forming.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#126

Post by zylepe » Thu, May 03, 2018, 12:45 AM UTC

I run https://onthegomap.com which uses Google Maps API. Last month it cost about $500 (for direction requests). Under the new pricing model it will cost $30,000 per month: $2,500 for page views, $27,000 for direction requests, and $1,000 for elevation request. It makes $300-500 per month in ad revenue. Time to shut down?

Re: Google Maps Platform

#127

Post by tj89 » Thu, May 03, 2018, 12:48 AM UTC

zylepe wrote: post #126

I run https://onthegomap.com which uses Google Maps API. Last month it cost about $500 (for direction requests). Under the new pricing model it will cost $30,000 per month: $2,500 for page views, $27,000 for direction requests, and $1,000 for elevation request. It makes $300-500 per month in ad revenue. Time to shut down?

While not to your degree I'm in a similar position. They only gave us 30 days to figure all this out which is ridiculous.

Where did you find your monthly API calls? I can't seem to get any numbers other than daily for the last week

Re: Google Maps Platform

#128

Post by lathiat » Thu, May 03, 2018, 12:48 AM UTC

robocat wrote: post #88

jazoom wrote: post #58

If you're on mobile, I'll save you some time. There is no way to locate the pricing page. And yes, the navigation menu is completely empty. I was able to get on a desktop and find the pricing page. Here's a link: https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/pricing/sheet/

iOS11 added a "Desktop view" mode but I am not sure the feature is well known (Android has had the feature forever, so by mobile, you mean iOS I think). From memory, in Safari, tap share, then scroll across to desktop view. I don't have an iDevice with me at moment, but it should work.

Tap Share, then "Request Desktop Site"

However I have found that it is quite unreliable at working. Not sure if it's just changing the viewport for CSS, or the user-agent, or what. But it frequently doesn't work.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#129

Post by zylepe » Thu, May 03, 2018, 12:53 AM UTC

tj89 wrote: post #127

zylepe wrote: post #126

I run https://onthegomap.com which uses Google Maps API. Last month it cost about $500 (for direction requests). Under the new pricing model it will cost $30,000 per month: $2,500 for page views, $27,000 for direction requests, and $1,000 for elevation request. It makes $300-500 per month in ad revenue. Time to shut down?

While not to your degree I'm in a similar position. They only gave us 30 days to figure all this out which is ridiculous. Where did you find your monthly API calls? I can't seem to get any numbers other than daily for the last week

https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/dashboard - at first I thought I was in the clear, then I realized I had 1 day selected.

Re: Google Maps Platform

#130

Post by kpennell » Thu, May 03, 2018, 12:56 AM UTC

zylepe wrote: post #126

I run https://onthegomap.com which uses Google Maps API. Last month it cost about $500 (for direction requests). Under the new pricing model it will cost $30,000 per month: $2,500 for page views, $27,000 for direction requests, and $1,000 for elevation request. It makes $300-500 per month in ad revenue. Time to shut down?

just unblocked your ads and clicked a bunch!