Geocoding in web development: analysis of methods and practical implementation based on Nominatim

Abstract

The article examines methods of implementing geocoding in web development, analyses commercial APIs, and provides practical implementation based on the open-source service Nominatim. The relevance of the work is due to the need to choose the optimal geocoding solution, since commercial services create significant financial barriers for projects with limited budgets, while open alternatives have their own technical features. It has been established that the main problem for developers is the choice between reliable commercial products with a pay-as-you-go model and complex licensing terms, and free tools that depend on the quality of community data and require resources for deployment. The aim of the study is to determine the effectiveness of Nominatim as a viable alternative to commercial APIs. The scientific and technical task is to justify and verify the architectural approach to organising geocoding based on free software to circumvent the limitations of paid and public services. The article uses methods of comparative analysis of pricing models and data storage policies. The practical implementation of forward and reverse geocoding is demonstrated using code examples with queries to both a public API and a locally deployed Nominatim server. The results showed that Nominatim provides complete control over data and zero cost, which is an advantage over commercial solutions. It was concluded that the choice of service depends on priorities: commercial APIs are suitable for tasks with high accuracy requirements, while Nominatim is optimal for socially oriented projects with limited budgets.