How We reduced our Google Maps API cost
blog.cityflo.com
How We reduced our Google Maps API cost
1–10 of 172 posts
Re: How We reduced our Google Maps API cost
#2For what it's worth, I found OpenStreetMaps and the Open Source Routing Machine to be sufficient for our purposes.
If you don't want features like real-time traffic awareness, it's worth investigating the open source tooling. It can save a LOT of money.
Re: How We reduced our Google Maps API cost
#3For what it's worth, I found OpenStreetMaps and the Open Source Routing Machine to be sufficient for our purposes. If you don't want features like real-time traffic awareness, it's worth investigating the open source tooling. It can save a LOT of money.
I think real time traffic awareness is exactly what the poster wanted, but yeah it seems like people who don’t need that would be better off using OSS where possible.
Re: How We reduced our Google Maps API cost
#4For what it's worth, I found OpenStreetMaps and the Open Source Routing Machine to be sufficient for our purposes. If you don't want features like real-time traffic awareness, it's worth investigating the open source tooling. It can save a LOT of money.
I think real time traffic awareness is exactly what the poster wanted, but yeah it seems like people who don’t need that would be better off using OSS where possible.
Yeah, unfortunately I'm not aware of any open/free sources of real-time traffic data.
Re: How We reduced our Google Maps API cost
#5For what it's worth, I found OpenStreetMaps and the Open Source Routing Machine to be sufficient for our purposes. If you don't want features like real-time traffic awareness, it's worth investigating the open source tooling. It can save a LOT of money.
+1 for OSRM. Switched after a bad API call cost me thousands :p
Re: How We reduced our Google Maps API cost
#6Since they have actual vehicles on the ground, they could collect data on actual travel times under various traffic conditions and apply a bit of ML to predict how long it's going to take under current conditions. No need for any Google API there.
But now that their Google bill is only ~$50/day, it might not be worth building their own prediction system.
Re: How We reduced our Google Maps API cost
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think real time traffic awareness is exactly what the poster wanted, but yeah it seems like people who don’t need that would be better off using OSS where possible.
Yeah, unfortunately I'm not aware of any open/free sources of real-time traffic data.
The various European governments have free data but it’s not very granular.
Re: How We reduced our Google Maps API cost
#8For what it's worth, I found OpenStreetMaps and the Open Source Routing Machine to be sufficient for our purposes. If you don't want features like real-time traffic awareness, it's worth investigating the open source tooling. It can save a LOT of money.
PSA: Open Source Routing Machine (OSRM) was largely abandoned by its maintainers. Several of us are working to reboot it, so if you enjoy map data and/or graph theory and have C++ skills, this would be a great project to work on.
https://github.com/Project-OSRM/osrm-backend/
(Reboot discussion at https://github.com/Project-OSRM/osrm-backend/issues/5209)
Re: How We reduced our Google Maps API cost
#9It is a proof of that Google API is overpriced. Google apparently sells something, that can be computed as well.
Re: How We reduced our Google Maps API cost
#10This seems to be violating the Maps API terms of service?
https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/terms
(a) No Scraping. Customer will not export, extract, or otherwise scrape Google Maps Content for use outside the Services. For example, Customer will not: (i) pre-fetch, index, store, reshare, or rehost Google Maps Content outside the services; (ii) bulk download Google Maps tiles, Street View images, geocodes, directions, distance matrix results, roads information, places information, elevation values, and time zone details; (iii) copy and save business names, addresses, or user reviews; or (iv) use Google Maps Content with text-to-speech services.
(b) No Caching. Customer will not cache Google Maps Content except as expressly permitted under the Maps Service Specific Terms.