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openrouteservice vs Photon: catalog facts
openrouteservice	Photon
Best for: Routing and reachability analysis on OpenStreetMap data, hosted or on your own server	Best for: Developers adding OpenStreetMap place search to a map or app
Free Open source to self-host; the public API is free within daily limits.	Free Free and open source; the public API is free for fair use.
Web, Self-hosted	Web, Self-hosted
Directions, isochrones, matrices and geocoding in one API Self-hostable with Docker Compose or as a JAR All 4 strengths for openrouteservice Directions, isochrones, matrices and geocoding in one API Self-hostable with Docker Compose or as a JAR Free public API and browser map client QGIS plugin and Python, JavaScript and R clients	Typeahead search with typo tolerance Multilingual results and reverse geocoding All 4 strengths for Photon Typeahead search with typo tolerance Multilingual results and reverse geocoding Simple HTTP API returning GeoJSON Public API available for light use
Public API has daily request limits Self-hosting large regions needs significant server resources	Public API is throttled under heavy use and has no availability guarantee Self-hosting requires running OpenSearch with OSM data
Web application, Self-hosted, Hosted service	Self-hosted, Hosted service
Open source	Open source
License not stated	License not stated
Not stated if an account is needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Sources for openrouteservice openrouteservice.org Catalog checked September 23, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Sources for Photon photon.komoot.io Catalog checked September 23, 2026

“Not stated” means we have not confirmed it. Features can vary by device and plan.