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

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

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