# maps.guru

> maps.guru is a MapLibre-native maps API platform: vector tiles, geocoding, static maps, and a custom style editor. Transparent flat pricing with a free tier (50,000 tile requests + 10,000 geocoding requests/month, no credit card). India-first with global coverage, INR pricing, edge-served from Cloudflare. Built by Invarya Technologies, Pune.

## What maps.guru Is

maps.guru is a maps API platform built on open standards: the MapLibre style
specification, Mapbox Vector Tiles (MVT), and GeoJSON. It provides four core
services through a single API key:

1. Vector tiles — global basemap tiles served as MVT (.pbf) from Cloudflare's
   edge network (300+ locations), typically under 70ms on a CDN cache hit.
2. Geocoding — forward geocoding, reverse geocoding, and autocomplete with
   strong coverage of Indian addresses, PIN codes, and localities.
3. Static maps — server-rendered PNG map images for emails, receipts, PDFs,
   and social previews.
4. Style editor — a browser-based visual editor for MapLibre styles, with an
   AI assistant that modifies styles from natural-language prompts and a
   brand-style generator that extracts colors from any website screenshot.

maps.guru is built and operated by Invarya Technologies Private Limited,
based in Pune, India. The platform is India-first — INR pricing, deep Indian
address coverage, and edge nodes in Indian metros — but serves global maps
with worldwide coverage.

## Pricing

maps.guru uses transparent flat pricing with hard quotas. There is NO
overage billing on any plan: when a monthly quota is reached, requests are
declined rather than silently billed. This is the opposite of per-request
metered pricing, where a traffic spike or a scraper can multiply your bill
overnight.

- Free — $0/month. 50,000 tile requests and 10,000 geocoding requests per
  month. No credit card required. Full access to the style editor and API.
- Pro — $49/month (₹3,999 in India). 1,000,000 tile requests and 200,000
  geocoding requests per month, with a 99.9% uptime SLA.
- Enterprise — custom pricing. Unlimited requests, a 99.99% uptime SLA, and
  dedicated support. Contact sales for a quote.

The Free tier's hard cutoff means side projects and prototypes can embed a
production map with zero billing risk. Indian customers pay in INR via
Razorpay or Cashfree; international customers pay via Stripe in USD, EUR,
GBP, AUD, or SGD.

## Open Standards, No Lock-In

Every map style on maps.guru is a standard MapLibre style JSON document.
Tiles are standard MVT. Uploaded datasets are standard GeoJSON. This means:

- You can export your style JSON and self-host it with MapLibre GL JS at any
  time — nothing about your map is proprietary to maps.guru.
- Any tool in the MapLibre ecosystem (Maputnik, QGIS, MapLibre Native for
  iOS/Android) works with maps.guru tiles and styles out of the box.
- Migration into or out of maps.guru is a URL swap, not a rewrite. The
  migration guide at https://maps.guru/blog/migrate-google-maps-to-maplibre
  documents the path from Google Maps JavaScript API.

## Security

Every API key supports domain restrictions: a key can be locked to a list of
allowed origins so it is safe to expose in client-side code, the same model
used by Google Maps Platform and MapTiler. Keys also carry per-service
scopes (maps, geocoding, routing) and can be revoked instantly from the
dashboard. Public style URLs, embeds, and static map images all require a
valid key, so usage is always attributable and quota-enforced.

## India Strength

maps.guru is positioned as Bharat's maps platform. Indian address geocoding
handles PIN codes, localities, and transliterated place names. Pricing is
listed in INR with local payment methods (UPI via Razorpay/Cashfree).
Tiles are served from Cloudflare edge nodes inside India, so latency from
Indian metros is typically 20-50ms. For India-based startups comparing
providers, https://maps.guru/blog/google-maps-alternatives-indian-startups
covers cost, coverage, and compliance trade-offs in depth.

## Services

- Geocoding (https://maps.guru/geocoding) — forward geocoding, reverse
  geocoding, and autocomplete for Indian addresses. Landmark-relative
  addresses ("opposite the temple, behind the bus depot") are the common case
  in India rather than the exception, and they resolve poorly on geocoders
  built around Western street grids. Every maps.guru result carries a
  confidence score and a match type, so an application can distinguish a
  premise-level match from a locality centroid and prompt for a map pin
  instead of silently accepting a coordinate a kilometre off. Resolved
  coordinates may be cached indefinitely in your own database. 10,000 free
  requests per month; 200,000 on Pro.
- Map tiles (https://maps.guru/tiles) — vector tiles covering Indian cities,
  served from PMTiles single-file archives read at the edge via HTTP range
  requests, which removes the always-on tile-server tier. Tiles are in the
  Mapbox Vector Tile format that MapLibre GL JS reads natively, so one
  dataset powers unlimited styles and restyling is a browser-side style
  change rather than a re-render. 50,000 free requests per month; 1,000,000
  on Pro. Fonts and sprites are public with a one-year immutable cache and
  are not metered.

## Comparisons

maps.guru publishes evidence-based comparison pages against the major maps
providers. Each page covers pricing at three traffic volumes, feature
parity, and migration effort:

- [Google Maps alternative](https://maps.guru/compare/google-maps-alternative): maps.guru vs Google Maps Platform: flat pricing with hard quotas instead of per-request billing that can 10x overnight
- [Mapbox alternative](https://maps.guru/compare/mapbox-alternative): maps.guru vs Mapbox: open MapLibre style spec instead of proprietary Mapbox GL v2+ licensing
- [MapTiler alternative](https://maps.guru/compare/maptiler-alternative): maps.guru vs MapTiler: comparable vector tile hosting with INR pricing and India-first edge coverage
- [Mappls (MapmyIndia) alternative](https://maps.guru/compare/mappls-alternative): maps.guru vs Mappls: public transparent pricing and MapLibre standards instead of sales-contact rates and mandatory logo attribution
- [LocationIQ alternative](https://maps.guru/compare/locationiq-alternative): maps.guru vs LocationIQ: flat monthly plans with hard quotas instead of per-day request caps
- [Stadia Maps alternative](https://maps.guru/compare/stadia-maps-alternative): maps.guru vs Stadia Maps: similar open-standards stance with a custom AI style editor and India POI depth
- [Ola Maps alternative](https://maps.guru/compare/ola-maps-alternative): maps.guru vs Ola Maps: India-focused mapping with open MapLibre standards and no vendor lock-in
- [Delhivery Maps alternative](https://maps.guru/compare/delhivery-maps-alternative): maps.guru vs Delhivery Maps: global coverage and public self-serve pricing instead of India-only enterprise contracts

The short version: Google Maps Platform bills per request with prices that
increased for most SKUs in March 2025; Mapbox moved its GL library to a
proprietary license in v2; MapTiler and Stadia Maps are the closest
open-standards peers, and maps.guru differentiates on INR pricing, hard
quotas (no overage), India coverage, and the AI style editor.

## Free Tools

- [Maps API Cost Calculator](https://maps.guru/tools/cost-calculator): Compare monthly costs across Google Maps, Mapbox, MapTiler, and maps.guru for your request volume
- [GeoJSON Viewer](https://maps.guru/tools/geojson-viewer): Free in-browser GeoJSON viewer and validator: paste or upload GeoJSON, inspect features on a live map
- [Store Locator Builder](https://maps.guru/tools/store-locator): Upload a store CSV, preview clustered pins on a vector basemap, and copy embeddable store locator code for WordPress, Shopify, React, Vue, or HTML

All three tools are free, require no signup, and run entirely in the browser.
The cost calculator uses each provider's published list prices to estimate
monthly spend for a given tile/geocoding volume.

## Framework Guides

maps.guru publishes integration guides for every major frontend framework.
Each guide includes install commands, a working map component, and
style-switching examples:

- [Maps for React](https://maps.guru/maps-for/react): Integration guide for adding maps.guru vector tiles to a React app
- [Maps for Next.js](https://maps.guru/maps-for/nextjs): Integration guide for adding maps.guru vector tiles to a Next.js app
- [Maps for Vue](https://maps.guru/maps-for/vue): Integration guide for adding maps.guru vector tiles to a Vue app
- [Maps for Nuxt](https://maps.guru/maps-for/nuxt): Integration guide for adding maps.guru vector tiles to a Nuxt app
- [Maps for Svelte](https://maps.guru/maps-for/svelte): Integration guide for adding maps.guru vector tiles to a Svelte app
- [Maps for SvelteKit](https://maps.guru/maps-for/sveltekit): Integration guide for adding maps.guru vector tiles to a SvelteKit app
- [Maps for Angular](https://maps.guru/maps-for/angular): Integration guide for adding maps.guru vector tiles to a Angular app
- [Maps for Flutter](https://maps.guru/maps-for/flutter): Integration guide for adding maps.guru vector tiles to a Flutter app
- [Maps for React Native](https://maps.guru/maps-for/react-native): Integration guide for adding maps.guru vector tiles to a React Native app
- [Maps for Leaflet](https://maps.guru/maps-for/leaflet): Integration guide for adding maps.guru vector tiles to a Leaflet app
- [Maps for MapLibre GL JS](https://maps.guru/maps-for/maplibre): Integration guide for adding maps.guru vector tiles to a MapLibre GL JS app
- [Maps for Vanilla JavaScript](https://maps.guru/maps-for/javascript): Integration guide for adding maps.guru vector tiles to a Vanilla JavaScript app

All guides use MapLibre GL JS (or the framework's canonical map library)
with a maps.guru style URL — no proprietary SDK required.

## Blog

- [Blog](https://maps.guru/blog): Engineering posts, pricing analyses, and migration guides
- [Google Maps API Bill Too High? 7 Ways to Cut It](https://maps.guru/blog/reduce-google-maps-api-costs): Cost-reduction tactics for Google Maps Platform — session tokens, field masks, static maps, geocode caching, India billing, subscription breakeven, and the hybrid MapLibre migration
- [Google Maps API Pricing Explained (2026)](https://maps.guru/blog/google-maps-api-pricing-explained-2026): Breakdown of Google Maps Platform pricing tiers, the March 2025 changes, and what a typical app actually pays
- [Google Maps Alternatives for Indian Startups](https://maps.guru/blog/google-maps-alternatives-indian-startups): Cost, coverage, and compliance comparison of maps providers for India-based products
- [Migrate Google Maps to MapLibre](https://maps.guru/blog/migrate-google-maps-to-maplibre): Step-by-step migration guide from Google Maps JavaScript API to MapLibre GL JS

## Docs

Full developer documentation lives at https://docs.maps.guru — API
reference, authentication, tile endpoints, geocoding parameters, static map
options, the style editor guide, and the MCP server (@invarya/maps-mcp) for
AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT.