How can it be half the price?
Two structural reasons. The map data comes from open sources plus commercial feeds we license per region rather than owning end to end, and there is no field sales organisation — the rate card does the selling. The trade-off is honest: we do not sell embedded automotive-grade HD maps, and the deepest coverage tiers stay HERE's.
Is the free tier smaller than HERE's?
No. Free allowances match theirs service by service: 30 000 geocoding, 30 000 map tiles, 5 000 routing, 2 500 matrix, 500 tour optimisations. The 50% applies to the paid rates.
What happens when HERE changes its prices?
The rate card is derived from theirs by a single constant, and the page states the date it was last reconciled. Their April 2026 increase of about 6% is already reflected. If they cut a rate, ours drops to half of the new one.
How compatible is it really?
Response field names, nesting and error shapes follow HERE's documented payloads for geocoding, routing, matrix, isolines, traffic and places. Where behaviour differs — mostly around scoring and truck attributes — the migration guide lists the difference instead of glossing over it.
What is not as good?
Three things. Coverage of indoor venues and lane-level HD data is narrower. There is no embedded automotive stack for offline head units. And the company is young: the SLA carries credits, but not a decade of references.
Can I run the sandbox before signing up?
That is what the panel above is. It returns documented response shapes from a fixture set, labelled as sandbox data, with no key and no account.