Open MapQuest

Google’s recent enforcement of Google Maps API usage, resulting in charges for those exceeding the stated free usage quotas, has led some web sites to jump ship in search of less expensive online mapping options including Open MapQuest.

Ed Freyfogle of Nestoria, a property search engine, recently posted on Nestoria’s blog about “Why (and how) we’ve switched away from Google Maps.”  Freyfolge explains that there were four main factors that triggered the switch to Open MapQuest which serves OpenStreetMap data.  Among the reasons, Freyfolgle listed the new usage charges by Google noting that the salesperson he had scheduled to meet with “quoted a price to continue using Google Maps (just on nestoria.co.uk, one of eight countries we operate in) that would have bankrupted our company.”

Another company, Fubra, which builds innovate web sites, also explain in a post written by Front-End Developer Neil Sweeney why the company also made the switch to Open MapQuest.  One of the reasons cited for the switch was the prohibitive costs of the new Google Maps API usage cost structure, “One of our sites, World Airport Codes, is one of those sites. I suppose it’s nice to be thought of as one of the 0.35%, but not so good that the costs of using Google Maps on this particular site would be more than it earns in advertising revenue.”

The U.S. version of Open MapQuest, which is still in beta, was launched a year ago and it built using crowdsourced OpenStreetMap data.  Open MapQuest is synced every 15 minutes and updated with the latest OpenStreetMap data.