The Geocoding OSM API Offers the Following Services:
- Find places matching an address to get their geographic positions,
- with a single address string (Places by Text).
- with separate input strings for each address field (Places by Address).
- Find places near a geographic position to get their addresses (Places by Position).
Geocoding API vs Geocoding OSM API
- Different data sources: Geocoding API is based on HERE data while Geocoding OSM API is based on OSM data.
- Different APIs: The two APIs differ in input and return parameters.
- Different concepts: OSM API only knows places while Geocoding API distinguishes between locations and places. OSM API returns places records which contain an address and can additionally have a name and category.
Places by Text vs by Address
- If you search by address, you pass the different fields of the address as separate strings. Use this if your data is available in that form, e.g. from a customer database.
- If you search by text, all address fields are entered as one single string. Use this if your input is not split into fields.