Is there a free IP geolocation database with an API?

Advin · December 18

I'm searching online, but pretty much every IP database has some some of restriction like with the number of requests, ability to use it for commercial purposes, API limitations, or the number of requests per second.

Is there anything that is completely free, with no such limitations, that can convert an IP into a rough city/country/geolocation/ASN through an API?

Neoon · December 18

Not really that I am aware off.
Either its limited as you say or inaccurate.

Even if you pay, there is no best, they only have like xx% accuracy anyway.

xTom · December 18

Sent you a DM.

yoursunny · December 18

Invoke birdc s r for to convert the IP into an ASN.
It's free and unlimited.

terrorgen · December 18

@yoursunny said:
Invoke birdc s r for to convert the IP into an ASN.
It's free and unlimited.

If your intent is to find out where they are located, ASNs are quite inaccurate beyond most consumer ISPs.

You could have an ASN geo located in Antarctica but most of your traffic originates from North America, for example.

cochon · December 18

Rough? depending on your requirement for accuracy and timeliness I found self hosting Maxmind's free database the better option and just rolling a simple API for my own use. Not seen much negative feedback on its accuracy but would be interested to know other's experience. It seems to do the job for me, but I'm not using it for arbitrating sign-ups et al.

Neoon · December 18

@cochon said:
Rough? depending on your requirement for accuracy and timeliness I found self hosting Maxmind's free database the better option and just rolling a simple API for my own use. Not seen much negative feedback on its accuracy but would be interested to know other's experience. It seems to do the job for me, but I'm not using it for arbitrating sign-ups et al.

Well, the free Maxmind geo db is meh, there are better ones.
https://db-ip.com/

Maxmind has a lot of spots with no data, db-ip has at all.
On accuracy well, they all suck, some suck less.

legendary · December 18

@Neoon said:

@cochon said:
Rough? depending on your requirement for accuracy and timeliness I found self hosting Maxmind's free database the better option and just rolling a simple API for my own use. Not seen much negative feedback on its accuracy but would be interested to know other's experience. It seems to do the job for me, but I'm not using it for arbitrating sign-ups et al.

Well, the free Maxmind geo db is meh, there are better ones.
https://db-ip.com/

Maxmind has a lot of spots with no data, db-ip has at all.
On accuracy well, they all suck, some suck less.

MaxMind and db-ip is not bad, but for commercial scale operation I would use https://ipinfo.io/ . They just so good.

Advin · December 18

@legendary said:

@Neoon said:

@cochon said:
Rough? depending on your requirement for accuracy and timeliness I found self hosting Maxmind's free database the better option and just rolling a simple API for my own use. Not seen much negative feedback on its accuracy but would be interested to know other's experience. It seems to do the job for me, but I'm not using it for arbitrating sign-ups et al.

Well, the free Maxmind geo db is meh, there are better ones.
https://db-ip.com/

Maxmind has a lot of spots with no data, db-ip has at all.
On accuracy well, they all suck, some suck less.

MaxMind and db-ip is not bad, but for commercial scale operation I would use https://ipinfo.io/ . They just so good.

I like IPInfo and that's what I already use for most of my projects.

It is more for curiosity, if there is anything that is truly open and free with no limitations that anyone has to worry about. I want to share my projects, and being able to use an IP API without needing an API key or anything special would just be nice to have. For commercial use, I would be fine with paying, but this is more for my personal projects.

I could look into making my own free IP database at some point as well.

spiritlhl · December 18

https://www.cheervision.co/ipinfo ?

Advin · December 18

@Neoon said:

@cochon said:
Rough? depending on your requirement for accuracy and timeliness I found self hosting Maxmind's free database the better option and just rolling a simple API for my own use. Not seen much negative feedback on its accuracy but would be interested to know other's experience. It seems to do the job for me, but I'm not using it for arbitrating sign-ups et al.

Well, the free Maxmind geo db is meh, there are better ones.
https://db-ip.com/

Maxmind has a lot of spots with no data, db-ip has at all.
On accuracy well, they all suck, some suck less.

I also agree that Maxmind is not great. I don't think they really do much validation themselves. I always found IPInfo to be the "best" database in terms of accuracy. db-ip might also be good, though I never used it before

cmeerw · December 18

@spiritlhl said:
https://www.cheervision.co/ipinfo ?

I have no idea what that does (actually https://www.cheervision.co/ipinfo/tools/ ) - the IP address is completely wrong (wrong continent) and so is the latency info.

sh97 · December 18

@Advin said:

@legendary said:

@Neoon said:

@cochon said:
Rough? depending on your requirement for accuracy and timeliness I found self hosting Maxmind's free database the better option and just rolling a simple API for my own use. Not seen much negative feedback on its accuracy but would be interested to know other's experience. It seems to do the job for me, but I'm not using it for arbitrating sign-ups et al.

Well, the free Maxmind geo db is meh, there are better ones.
https://db-ip.com/

Maxmind has a lot of spots with no data, db-ip has at all.
On accuracy well, they all suck, some suck less.

MaxMind and db-ip is not bad, but for commercial scale operation I would use https://ipinfo.io/ . They just so good.

I like IPInfo and that's what I already use for most of my projects.

It is more for curiosity, if there is anything that is truly open and free with no limitations that anyone has to worry about. I want to share my projects, and being able to use an IP API without needing an API key or anything special would just be nice to have. For commercial use, I would be fine with paying, but this is more for my personal projects.

I could look into making my own free IP database at some point as well.

Try ip-api.co
I use it for nws.sh
Only caveat - you can't use https on the free version, so have to run it on server (ie you can't run as JS on a website)
Accuracy is kinda a hit/miss, but it's been good so far

zgato · December 18

@sh97 said:

@Advin said:

@legendary said:

@Neoon said:

@cochon said:
Rough? depending on your requirement for accuracy and timeliness I found self hosting Maxmind's free database the better option and just rolling a simple API for my own use. Not seen much negative feedback on its accuracy but would be interested to know other's experience. It seems to do the job for me, but I'm not using it for arbitrating sign-ups et al.

Well, the free Maxmind geo db is meh, there are better ones.
https://db-ip.com/

Maxmind has a lot of spots with no data, db-ip has at all.
On accuracy well, they all suck, some suck less.

MaxMind and db-ip is not bad, but for commercial scale operation I would use https://ipinfo.io/ . They just so good.

I like IPInfo and that's what I already use for most of my projects.

It is more for curiosity, if there is anything that is truly open and free with no limitations that anyone has to worry about. I want to share my projects, and being able to use an IP API without needing an API key or anything special would just be nice to have. For commercial use, I would be fine with paying, but this is more for my personal projects.

I could look into making my own free IP database at some point as well.

Try ip-api.co
I use it for nws.sh
Only caveat - you can't use https on the free version, so have to run it on server (ie you can't run as JS on a website)
Accuracy is kinda a hit/miss, but it's been good so far

Basically upstreams to MaxMind.

sh97 · December 18

@zgato said:

@sh97 said:

@Advin said:

@legendary said:

@Neoon said:

@cochon said:
Rough? depending on your requirement for accuracy and timeliness I found self hosting Maxmind's free database the better option and just rolling a simple API for my own use. Not seen much negative feedback on its accuracy but would be interested to know other's experience. It seems to do the job for me, but I'm not using it for arbitrating sign-ups et al.

Well, the free Maxmind geo db is meh, there are better ones.
https://db-ip.com/

Maxmind has a lot of spots with no data, db-ip has at all.
On accuracy well, they all suck, some suck less.

MaxMind and db-ip is not bad, but for commercial scale operation I would use https://ipinfo.io/ . They just so good.

I like IPInfo and that's what I already use for most of my projects.

It is more for curiosity, if there is anything that is truly open and free with no limitations that anyone has to worry about. I want to share my projects, and being able to use an IP API without needing an API key or anything special would just be nice to have. For commercial use, I would be fine with paying, but this is more for my personal projects.

I could look into making my own free IP database at some point as well.

Try ip-api.co
I use it for nws.sh
Only caveat - you can't use https on the free version, so have to run it on server (ie you can't run as JS on a website)
Accuracy is kinda a hit/miss, but it's been good so far

Basically upstreams to MaxMind.

Oh, my bad, didn't know that.

AlwaysSkint · December 18

On a related note. Done a WhatsMyIP lookup on an IP that was linked to a domain that I wanted to reuse - it came back as still owned by Nexus Bytes.

Neoon · December 18

Tried https://ipgeolocation.io/api/ipgeolocation

big sucky, got a bunch of my servers incorrectly placed.
Since I fetch them per machine, IP limit isn't an issue but still.

edit: duh, ipinfo has it right, time so switch, brb.

AuroraZero · December 18

Been building one of these since 1996. Probably will die still building it.

JikHan · December 19

Deleted

Neoon · December 23

@sh97 said:

@Advin said:

@legendary said:

@Neoon said:

@cochon said:
Rough? depending on your requirement for accuracy and timeliness I found self hosting Maxmind's free database the better option and just rolling a simple API for my own use. Not seen much negative feedback on its accuracy but would be interested to know other's experience. It seems to do the job for me, but I'm not using it for arbitrating sign-ups et al.

Well, the free Maxmind geo db is meh, there are better ones.
https://db-ip.com/

Maxmind has a lot of spots with no data, db-ip has at all.
On accuracy well, they all suck, some suck less.

MaxMind and db-ip is not bad, but for commercial scale operation I would use https://ipinfo.io/ . They just so good.

I like IPInfo and that's what I already use for most of my projects.

It is more for curiosity, if there is anything that is truly open and free with no limitations that anyone has to worry about. I want to share my projects, and being able to use an IP API without needing an API key or anything special would just be nice to have. For commercial use, I would be fine with paying, but this is more for my personal projects.

I could look into making my own free IP database at some point as well.

Try ip-api.co
I use it for nws.sh
Only caveat - you can't use https on the free version, so have to run it on server (ie you can't run as JS on a website)
Accuracy is kinda a hit/miss, but it's been good so far

You can use https with them, I just stumbled across them.
Open your browser developer console.

It makes a https call right, so it does support https.
You can't call

curl 'https://demo.ip-api.com/json/1.1.1.1'

But what if you just copy that api call with the headers like this?

curl 'https://demo.ip-api.com/json/1.1.1.1' \
  -H 'Origin: https://ip-api.com' \
  -H 'Pragma: no-cache' \
  -H 'Referer: https://ip-api.com/'

gg ez

Neoon · December 24

@Neoon said:
Tried https://ipgeolocation.io/api/ipgeolocation

big sucky, got a bunch of my servers incorrectly placed.
Since I fetch them per machine, IP limit isn't an issue but still.

edit: duh, ipinfo has it right, time so switch, brb.

Yea ip-api.com is way better.

zgato · December 24

@Neoon said:

@Neoon said:
Tried https://ipgeolocation.io/api/ipgeolocation

big sucky, got a bunch of my servers incorrectly placed.
Since I fetch them per machine, IP limit isn't an issue but still.

edit: duh, ipinfo has it right, time so switch, brb.

Yea ip-api.com is way better.

I mean, ip-api.com is just Maxmind, and Maxmind's accuracy is rather interesting (at least for DC blocks, residential are mostly fine)

Neoon · December 24

@zgato said:

@Neoon said:

@Neoon said:
Tried https://ipgeolocation.io/api/ipgeolocation

big sucky, got a bunch of my servers incorrectly placed.
Since I fetch them per machine, IP limit isn't an issue but still.

edit: duh, ipinfo has it right, time so switch, brb.

Yea ip-api.com is way better.

I mean, ip-api.com is just Maxmind, and Maxmind's accuracy is rather interesting (at least for DC blocks, residential are mostly fine)

Good to know, well, as expected, the free maxmind db is crap but the paid one seems good.

yoursunny · December 24

@Neoon said:

@sh97 said:
Try ip-api.co
Only caveat - you can't use https on the free version, so have to run it on server (ie you can't run as JS on a website)

You can use https with them, I just stumbled across them.
curl 'https://demo.ip-api.com/json/1.1.1.1' \
  -H 'Origin: https://ip-api.com' \
  -H 'Pragma: no-cache' \
  -H 'Referer: https://ip-api.com/' 

Origin and Referer headers cannot be modified from browser JavaScript.

Is there a free IP geolocation database with an API?

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