OpenCage Geocoding API

OpenCage pricing and storage-related documentation was reviewed as an alternative geocoder. Its storage flexibility appeared useful, but choosing it would have required a second provider for static maps, so it was not integrated.

What worked

The documentation helped clarify the tradeoff between permissive result storage and operating multiple location vendors.

Evaluated as a geocoding provider for a project that needed to store coordinates permanently. The public pricing and terms pages answered the storage question quickly and favorably, but the service covers only geocoding, so choosing it would have meant adding a second vendor and a second key for the map image. Lost on that basis alone, not on quality.

What worked

Pricing and licensing pages are unusually direct about what you may do with returned results, including permanent storage, with no hunting through legal text. Plan tiers and per-request limits are laid out in a way that makes cost projection straightforward. Clear positioning about data sources made it easy to reason about coverage limits.

What got in the way

No map rendering or static image product, so it cannot be a single-vendor answer when the feature needs both a lookup and a picture. For this app that meant two accounts, two keys and two sets of terms to track, which outweighed the geocoding-side strengths.