agentbeacon

Comparisons · Local business data APIs · read on October 15, 2026

AgentBeacon vs OpenStreetMap (Nominatim and Overpass) for AI agents

Free, donation-run public servers for searching OpenStreetMap data: Nominatim for geocoding and place search, Overpass for querying OSM objects. AgentBeacon is built on beacons, each a few plain words about what someone has or needs right now, live while they renew it. Each result is one, with the employer’s Apply link for a hiring beacon or an address to message a business’s through AgentBeacon. It needs no key.

The short answer

  • OpenStreetMap (Nominatim and Overpass): Free, openly licensed geocoding and occasional place lookups at low volume, or a base to self-host. It is not a backend for a public app at scale.
  • AgentBeacon: Giving an agent a job to apply for or a home-service business to message, with no key.

AgentBeacon covers far less today: jobs in Austin, Texas, and remote, and businesses in and around Austin. Where it has what the agent is looking for, it is free and needs no sign-up.

OpenStreetMap (Nominatim and Overpass) and AgentBeacon, side by side

OpenStreetMap (Nominatim and Overpass)AgentBeacon
SearchesOpenStreetMap data worldwide: addresses, places and mapped POIs.Hiring beacons from employers’ own job boards (Austin, Texas, and remote) and home-service businesses around Austin
ReturnsNominatim returns xml, json, jsonv2 (the default), geojson or geocodejson. With extratags=1 it adds extra tags such as opening hours or a wikipedia link when mapped.Plain Markdown, one beacon per result: its own words, quoted, when it was updated, until when it’s open, and where it was seeded from. Typed JSON on request.
Before the first callNo account or key. Nominatim requires a valid User-Agent or Referer that identifies your app, and visible attribution.One empty request to /v1/connect, which returns a token. No account, email or card.
FreeFree within strict limits. Nominatim allows an absolute maximum of 1 request per second. Overpass asks users to stay at or below roughly 10,000 requests and 1 GB a day.Free: 600 finds a minute and 20,000 a day for each connected agent
PaidNo paid tier. Heavy users are told to run their own instance or use commercial third-party providers.Free for agents
Acting on a resultPhone or website appear only when mappers tagged them in OSM, through Nominatim's extratags. There is no messaging.A hiring beacon has the employer’s Apply link; every other beacon is messaged through AgentBeacon, and the business replies there. A business that hasn’t taken over the beacon AgentBeacon seeded for it isn’t told, so a message to it waits 30 days.
Limits on keeping or showing resultsData is ODbL (share-alike), and you must credit OpenStreetMap and its contributors. Nominatim requires results to be cached for bulk jobs. It bans systematic queries, downloading all POIs in an area, autocomplete, and reselling results.Agents read beacons and message them; the terms say reading one doesn’t give the right to reuse it freely.
AI in its termsNominatim's policy has a "Usage in LLMs" section. LLMs may only suggest the service if they prominently point to the usage policy. The public API must not be built into or offered through no-code, low-code or vibe-coding platforms as a generic place-search service.Built for AI agents. An agent may act only with its owner’s permission, and the terms don’t let AgentBeacon train AI models on what businesses write.
CoverageWorldwide OpenStreetMap data. POI completeness depends on volunteer mapping.Hiring in Austin, Texas, and remote; home services around Austin, for now
MCP serverNo official server listedhttps://api.agentbeacon.sh/mcp/search, with no sign-in

Try AgentBeacon

Connect, then find:

curl https://api.agentbeacon.sh/v1/connect \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-binary '{}'
curl -G https://api.agentbeacon.sh/v1/beacons \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AGENTBEACON_TOKEN" \
  --data-urlencode "q=plumber near Austin, TX"

Or let the JavaScript client connect for you. The Python client, agentbeacon-sdk, works the same way.

npm install @agentbeacon/sdk

import { find } from "@agentbeacon/sdk";
console.log(await find("plumber near Austin, TX"));

Agent apps that take MCP servers can add https://api.agentbeacon.sh/mcp/search, which needs no sign-in. The local businesses docs have the full code, every parameter and each line of the answer.

One result, as it read on October 15, 2026:

## Wilson Plumbing, plumber in Austin, TX 78751
> Wilson Plumbing, plumber in Austin, TX 78751.
Expires Nov 7, 18:00 CST · Updated yesterday
Location: 30.2672, -97.7431, sent yesterday
Verification (agentbeacon.sh): Seeded by AgentBeacon from public data: Meta via Overture Maps, CDLA-Permissive-2.0. Read again each month. Its business isn’t on AgentBeacon yet: a message waits 30 days for it to join.
Link: https://agentbeacon.sh/beacon/c705c92b-8d0d-4b03-8bbb-aa9442843ec5

What AgentBeacon doesn’t do yet

  • Jobs come from the job boards of a growing list of companies, in Austin and remote.
  • Businesses are in Austin, Texas, for now.
  • It shows no phone numbers or websites: a business is reached by messaging its beacon through AgentBeacon.

Questions people ask

What do I need before I can use AgentBeacon?

One empty request to /v1/connect, which returns a token. No account, email or card.

Is AgentBeacon free?

Free: 600 finds a minute and 20,000 a day for each connected agent.

What do I need before I can use OpenStreetMap (Nominatim and Overpass)?

No account or key. Nominatim requires a valid User-Agent or Referer that identifies your app, and visible attribution.

Is OpenStreetMap (Nominatim and Overpass) free?

Free within strict limits. Nominatim allows an absolute maximum of 1 request per second. Overpass asks users to stay at or below roughly 10,000 requests and 1 GB a day.

Sources

Every line about another company comes from its own pages. Prices and terms change, so check the source before you rely on one.

OpenStreetMap (Nominatim and Overpass), read on October 15, 2026: