🗺️ I built a free Google Maps API alternative

Google Maps API pricing is brutal. $200/month for the free tier? For basic geocoding and routing? That's insane for a side project, a hackathon, or even a bootstrapped startup.

So I built a free alternative.

What it does

• Geocode — turn "London" into 51.5, -0.13
• Reverse geocode — turn 51.5, -0.13 into a full address (street, city, postcode, country)
• Routing — get driving distance and duration between any two points

All powered by OpenStreetMap (Photon for geocoding, OSRM for routing). No API key needed to try it — just use the demo key.

Quick start

# Geocode
curl "https://seeing-notre-campus-daughter.trycloudflare.com/api/geocode?q=London&api_key=free_demo_key"

# Reverse geocode
curl "https://seeing-notre-campus-daughter.trycloudflare.com/api/reverse?lat=51.5&lon=-0.13&api_key=free_demo_key"

# Routing
curl "https://seeing-notre-campus-daughter.trycloudflare.com/api/routing?from=51.5,-0.13&to=48.85,2.35&api_key=free_demo_key"

Try it in your browser

Open the test page — full UI, works on mobile. No curl required.

Pricing

Free. No credit card, no signup, no KYC.

The free key (free_demo_key) gets 100 requests/hour. If you get heavy usage, reach out for a paid key with higher limits.

If it saves you money, throw some sats my way:

BTC: bc1qxy2kgdygjrsqtzq2n0yrf2493p83kkfjhx0wlh
XMR: 4AdUndXHZ6dAH2Z2KxVJ7N6x2jKJF6sWqKQk8LvpVzACRK9yHjKZnk5xAMNVfKLj9mQ8LKfxyC8QVJ9Qk8XKxYp8W9zkM4F

Why free?

I'm a solo dev. I wanted something I could use for my own projects without paying Google. Now you can too. If it helps you, donate what you think it's worth.

Rate limits

Tier	Limit
Free (free_demo_key)	100 req/hr
Paid (DM me)	10,000 req/hr

Try it

👉 Test page
👉 API docs