PlaceKit is a worldwide geocoding API providing fast and accurate address autocomplete, store locator, and two-way geocoding for your app. It competes against Google Places and Mapbox as the successor of Algolia Places and founded by 2 of its former employees.
Hey PH community 👋
First of all it’s an honor to be hunted by @dessaigne, thanks a lot!
Our mission at PlaceKit is to become the go-to geocoding solution for developers. Existing solutions feel opaque as they're split across many indiscernible APIs, confusing pricing, and locking developers into their ecosystem. We put the focus on the developer experience, and the main PlaceKit benefits are:
✨ A single REST API with a worldwide addresses catalog and transparent per-request pricing with a free plan.
📦 Integrate easily anywhere with any maps provider or JS framework thanks to our SDKs and OpenAPI reference.
⚡️ Blazing fast, typo-tolerant and high-relevance search powered by Algolia engine.
Example use-cases:
📈 Increase conversions with address autocomplete and form filling.
🚚 Reduce misshipments with address validation.
✅ Data normalization.
🗺️ Search for places on a map.
🌍 Country-restricted content with reverse geocoding.
What will come next:
🛠️ Live patching: with the amount of data, no provider can pretend to have it 100% right, so we'll let you fix addresses and make them instantly available to your users. Addressing one of the most missing features from other solutions.
📍 Store Locator: define your points of interest with free-form metadata and let your users find the nearest ones to their location.
We are two former Algolia employees. @raphidev was the team leader of Algolia Places, and wanted to pursue it when it got sunset because all the interest it got from the developers community proved the need for an alternative. I was building internal tools there and gathered a lot of knowledge that now converges into making the best possible package around our API.
Any feedback on your PlaceKit journey would be very valuable, helping us to remove roadblocks and refine our tools to make the smoothest possible experience for our future users. Please also share in the comments any specific use-case that we don’t cover yet!
Nicolas Dessaigne