Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

Post by zero3 » Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #158

tuwtuwtuwtuw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in northern Europe (Sweden) at at least in my specific area OpenStreetMap is a lot better than Google maps.

I also live in Sweden and do a lot of GIS analysis with both OSM data and other providers. OSM is great when it comes to the actual road geometry (esp. bike and pedestrian roads), although it often gets the speed limits wrong. For pedestrian travel analysis I'd say it's the best dateset available, since it includes all those 'unofficial' paths that everybody uses, but are often left off official maps. It is however p…

> You don't have to get many km out from major cities before a lot of buildings are missing, and the numbering of buildings is often either missing or wrong.

I am working on a project where I have noticed the same problem with several providers. What provider do you recommend for geocoding when this stuff needs to be right most of the time? Bing API seems somewhat OK. Google Maps API seems like the best, but comes with insane terms and conditions.

Post by dagw » Mon, Jan 18, 2021, 7:39 AM UTC

zero3 wrote: post #441

dagw wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also live in Sweden and do a lot of GIS analysis with both OSM data and other providers. OSM is great when it comes to the actual road geometry (esp. bike and pedestrian roads), although it often gets the speed limits wrong. For pedestrian travel analysis I'd say it's the best dateset available, since it includes all those 'unofficial' paths that everybody uses, but are often left off official maps. It is however p…

> You don't have to get many km out from major cities before a lot of buildings are missing, and the numbering of buildings is often either missing or wrong. I am working on a project where I have noticed the same problem with several providers. What provider do you recommend for geocoding when this stuff needs to be right most of the time? Bing API seems somewhat OK. Google Maps API seems like the best, but comes wi…

Yea, I agree that the Bing API is pretty OK and Google seems slightly better. However for Sweden I would probably go with Hitta or Eniro, since they specialize in the Swedish market, however neither has a free API. Likewise if I only need data for a handful of countries (and am willing to pay) I would first look if there are companies that specialize in those countries, since that data tends to be better than the places that provide global Geocoding.

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating

Re: Google Maps' Moat Is Evaporating