A lightweight, on-demand forward geocoder for OSM data—name in, lat/lon out—that can replace self-hosted Nominatim for many use cases and cut cold-start from ~30 min to ~1 min on typical regional datasets. (Numbers are from my machine—YMMV.)
| Aspect | This project | Self-hosted Nominatim | Paid SaaS (typical) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boot/Build time (example) | ~1 min local (MSB PBF) | ~30 min to pull image (MSB PBF), plus import/prepare | Instant (external) |
| Infra | Ephemeral / on-demand | 24/7 server(s), stateful | Vendor-managed |
| Storage | Small (DuckDB/Parquet) | Large Postgres DB + indices | N/A (vendor) |
| Ops | Simple container or process | DB tuning, updates, backups | Vendor-managed |
| Use case fit | Forward geocoding by name | Full geocoding stack (forward + reverse + addresses) | Varies, $$$ |
Prereq: uv installed.
# 1) Create the virtualenv and install deps from pyproject.toml
make install
# 2) Build the gazetteer DuckDB from the PBF in config.toml
make build-gaz
# 3) Start the API (dev, auto-reload)
make run- API base URL: http://localhost:8000
- Swagger UI: http://localhost:8000/docs
- OpenAPI JSON: http://localhost:8000/openapi.json
The free OpenStreetMap data, which is used for the development of Scout, is licensed under the Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) by the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF).