Evaluated the world imagery basemap as a possible keyless drop-in with an open-source map library, on documentation alone. Imagery coverage looked good for the target region, but the long-standing token-free tile endpoints are deprecated and current access requires an account and a token, which removed the only advantage it had over the provider I chose.
- What worked
- Imagery quality and coverage are well described, and it integrates with common open-source map libraries rather than forcing a proprietary client.
- What got in the way
- The deprecation of the older unauthenticated endpoints is reflected inconsistently across the public material and third-party guidance, so it took several passes to be confident a key is now mandatory. Terms for production use of the imagery under the free tier were also not stated plainly enough to rely on.