Positionstack: Accurate Forward & Reverse Batch Geocoding REST API

Website ToolsEditorial • January 05, 2020 • 5 minutes READ

The tech space is more significant than it used to be in the past few years. The rate at which innovative products evolve has set one into deep thought on how our future is being shaped by technology. Wherefore, as you keep building platforms, systems and applications to shape our world, never forget that computers work in absolutes, and you need to design the “what and the how” of its operations.

For businesses and developers that are looking for a geocoding API to integrate on their platforms to serve as a free and reliable alternative to expensive Enterprise-grade geocoding software, the positionstack geocoding API is one of the best to consider. The positionstack API is affordable and user-friendly with accurate forward and reverse geocoding in real-time.

Here is a review on positionstack detailing how the accurate forward and reverse batch geocoding REST API works, its features and others.

What is positionstack?

Positionstack geocoding API was built to offer businesses and developers a free and reliable geocoding API for both forward and reverse geocoding in real-time. The API can serve as an alternative to expensive enterprise-grade geocoding software. The company is headquartered in Austria with a coverage of more than 2 billion addresses around the world and a regular geocode API lookups handling of more than 1 billion every day.

The positionstack API is powered by apilayer. The leading technology company also maintains the geocoding tool. Apilayer is one of the most renowned microservice API providers with more than 1 million B2B customers interacting with their software products daily. Therefore, the positionstack API is reliable because it’s powered and maintained by this company who is known for other excellent industry-leading products.

Positionstack API allows both forward and reverse geocoding. And forward geocoding in its simplest form means the interaction with addresses in the form of street names and numbers to convert them into coordinates. Whereas, reverse geocoding is the direct opposite of forward geocoding- the conversion of a given set of latitude and longitude coordinates to readable addresses or cities for humans.

Positionstack API makes use of a series of cutting-edge technologies and extensive datasets to source for addresses and coordinates. The accuracy of the API is mostly dependent on multiple and reliable data sources, which include GeoNames, Pelias, OpenStreetMap, and Nominatim. The geocoding API has global coverage and processes more than 1 billion geocode lookups per day with a worldwide dataset containing over 2 billion places and addresses.

Position geocoding API excels at both real-time forward and reverse geocoding. And with this scalable REST API coupled with a bit of coding, businesses and app developers can easily add maps and other location-related information to their platforms.

Key features of positionstack geocoding API

The positionstack geocoding API is an easy-to-use and affordable tool for both forward and reverse geocoding. The API comes with several innovative features that make a better alternative to expensive Enterprise-grade geocoding software. Here some of the features and functionalities of the aviationstack API:

• Powerful infrastructure: the API was built on a robust infrastructure which makes it very scalable for handling millions of requests thrown at it per hour. More so, the API is maintained by apilayer, a leading tech company that understand the creation of great products.
• Real-time and Accurate Geocoding Data: the positionstack geocoding API handles both forward and reverse geocoding data in real-time. The API provides accurate geocoding data for millions of requests made per hour.
• Broad Support across the Globe: the Geocoding API is not selective in its usage. Therefore, it provides supports for all the countries in the world and covers more than 2 billion addresses around the world.
• Serves Multiple Purposes: the positionstack geocoding API enables users to perform other functions beyond forward and reverse geocoding. The API also looks up location components, country, timezone data, and batch requests, among several others.
• Reliable Data Sources: the Geocoding API uses high-quality and reliable data vendors. The renowned data sources include Nominatim, GeoNames, Pelias and OpenStreetMap. These sources cover all cities of the world and enable accurate forward and reverse batch geocoding.
• Supports Embeddable Maps: the Geocoding API supports embeddable maps with which businesses and developers can embed a map on their platforms. This feature is entirely useful for accessible location of your business.
• Supports Multiple Programming Languages: the positionstack geocoding API supports multiple programming languages, including JSON, XML, and GeoJSON. Other supports languages include PHP, Python, Nodejs, jQuery, Go, and Ruby.
• Fast Response Time: the positionstack API has a quick response time ranging between 10ms and 100ms depending on the size of the data requests.
• Seamless Integration with Documentation: the Geocoding API is easy to integrate on any platform. The tool comes with extensive documentation featuring some essential lines of code that are beginner-friendly.
• Other Features: the Geocoding API also features a unique timezone module, a bounding box module, output formats and capable of returning astrology data alongside forward and reverse geocoding requests.

Pricing plans of the positionstack API

This powerful geocoding API has four distinct pricing plans. The structure is designed to make it convenient for individuals, businesses and developers to select the best pricing plan for their needs and budgets. Below are the details of the pricing plans:

• Free Plan: this plan is for personal use, and it requires no credit card. The plan cost no money and allows 25,000 requests monthly for forward and reverse geocoding. It offers limited support with only a personal license.
• Basic Pricing Plan: this plan goes for $9.99 per month or $7.99 if billed yearly. It allows up to 100,000 requests per month with unlimited support. The plan supports commercial use and features a commercial license for both forward and reverse geocoding. The plan features HTTPS encryption, embeddable Maps, JSON, XML, and GeoJSON, multiple languages, and extended rate limit.
• Professional Pricing Plan: this is the most popular package, and it goes for $49.99 per month or $39.99 if billed yearly. The plan takes up to 1,000,000 requests monthly with unlimited support and a commercial license for forward and reverse geocoding. It comes with the full package of the basic pricing plan and an additional batch requests feature.
• Business Pricing Plan: the business-level plan is a full-suite plan that goes for $99.99 per month or $79.99 if billed yearly. The plan takes up about 3,000,000 requests monthly with premium support and a commercial license for forward and reverse geocoding. It comes with other available features under the professional pricing plan.
• Enterprise Plan: This enterprise package gives room for custom pricing, which allows you to tailor the package to suit your needs. You can choose your preferred volume requests and get custom solutions, batch requests, dedicated support, and a commercial license for forward and reverse geocoding. It also comes with other features available in the professional pricing plan.

Conclusion

Positionstack geocoding API comes with powerful features for forward and reverse geocoding. The tool is seamless with more than 2 billion addresses coverage around the world and 1 billion requests handling per day.

The API allows you to take advantage of an extensive set of comprehensive geocoding data, sourced from high-quality data vendors with regular updates multiple times per day. The scalable REST API powers thousands of web and mobile applications and takes less than 5 minutes to integrate on any platform.