Geocode and Embed Maps in Minutes With Positionstack

Mapping and geocoding can be a challenge when it comes to website and app development. But if you have the right tool, it’s a lot easier. That’s just what you get with positionstack, an accurate forward and reverse batch geocoding REST API that manages these tasks for you.

Forward geocoding is searching for a plain-text address or place name, and reverse geocoding uses latitude and longitude values.

Here’s a look at positionstack and how it can be useful for your projects.

What is positionstack?

places api

Positionstack is a geocoding REST API that provides information about places around the world, connecting developers and businesses to stronger mapping and location technologies.

The API covers more than 2 billion addresses around the world and all coordinates are returned in real-time with lookup location components that include country and time zone data.

Here’s how the company behind it describes this tool:

The positionstack geocoding API was built to offer a free and reliable alternative to expensive Enterprise-grade geocoding software, making use of a series of innovative technologies and extensive datasets available on the market and combining them into one powerful geocoding API service with global coverage.

The API features forward and reverse lookup methods. Forward geocoding is searching for a plain-text address or place name, and reverse geocoding uses latitude and longitude values.

The API has free and paid plans, depending on volume and usage.

Positionstack is a scalable geocoding API, so any website from a simple blog to a major enterprise can benefit from using it, and it will continue to work.

Positionstack processes more than 1 billion lookups per day and is built and maintained by apilayer, the company behind some of the most popular developer tools, SaaS products, and APIs currently on the market — including ipstack, eversign, invoicely and more, making it a tool you can trust.

Who Should Use It?

Geolocation is one of the hottest tools online. It makes life easy for users for everything from automatically calculating shipping rates to showing the correct time. All it takes to use this data is a little imagination.

A few examples of use – all outlined in the positionstack documentation – include:

  • Creating embeddable maps
  • Using country or other pinpoint locations
  • Developing a sun module
  • Using time zone for the end users
  • Putting location information in a bounding box module

Key Features

location api

What makes positionstack so valuable is that it is a useful tool. All different types of websites and apps can benefit from location information and data. With worldwide coverage on a scalable network, this API can grow with your projects.

Key features include:

  • Real-time geocoding
  • Accurate information thanks to sources such as Nominatim, GeoNames, Pelias, and OpenStreetMap with daily updates and filtering
  • Supports forward and reverse geocoding, batch requests, and embeddable maps
  • Lightning-fast response times with billions of requests between 10 and 100 ms
  • Worldwide coverage and geocoding data from high-quality vendors
  • Supports multiple languages
  • Data in JSON, XML, and GeoJSON formats
  • Plenty of documentation to make set up easy
  • Geocode with any programming language you choose
  • Almost 100% uptime rate (99.9%) in the past 12 months
  • Takes less than 5 minutes (and a few lines of code) to integrate
  • Uses a simple, JSON REST API
  • Bank-grade security
  • Scalable service that can grow with your website or business

Pricing

There’s a plan for anyone that thinks positionstack is a good fit for their web project. Plans start with a free version for personal projects and scale to custom enterprise-level packages.

Positionstack also offers discounts for annual billing with prepayment. (You can save 20%.)

Here’s how pricing breaks down:

  • Free: Designed for personal use (no credit card required), and includes 25,000 requests per month, forward and reverse geocoding, and limited support.
  • Basic ($9.99 per month): Includes 100,000 requests per month; a commercial license; forward and reverse geocoding; HTTPS encryption; an extended rate limit; embeddable maps; multiple languages; JSON, XML, and GeoJSON; and unlimited support.
  • Professional ($49.99 per month): Includes everything in basic plus 1 million requests per month and batch requests.
  • Business ($99.99 per month): Includes everything in professional plus 3 million requests per month.

Conclusion

Positionstack makes geolocation easy. It’s a highly functional tool for anyone that needs location data. The API integrates easily, and documentation allows almost anyone to integrate it.

Start with a free plan to test it out and scale positionstack up as your website grows. Try it today.