CommunityAbandoned· 11mo★ 4.3by Jagan Shanmugam

OpenStreetMap MCP

Location-based services including geocoding, route directions, nearby place searches, and neighbourhood analysis.

View repo

Safety & Trust

Delv Safety Grade: C

Score 58/100 · assessed 2026-04-28

Maintainer40

Permissions85

Supply chain55

Transparency60

Incidents100

This community MCP server provides read-only access to OpenStreetMap data for geocoding, routing, and place searches. The maintainer appears to be a solo developer with limited GitHub presence and sparse repository activity. The server itself performs well-scoped read operations against public OSM APIs (Nominatim, OSRM, Overpass), requiring no credentials or environment variables. Installation via uvx is standard for Python MCP servers. The repository has basic documentation but lacks comprehensive examples, changelog, or active issue tracking. No dependencies are pinned in the visible package configuration. The narrow permission scope (network outbound for API calls only) limits blast radius significantly. No security incidents are known, but the single-maintainer structure and thin community engagement present moderate supply chain risk. Suitable for non-sensitive location queries where data accuracy matters less than convenience.

Lethal Trifecta (prompt-injection exposure)

TWO OF THREE

Private dataNo

Reads secrets, credentials, private files

Untrusted inputYes

Ingests web pages, PRs, issues, emails

External commsYes

Can send data outbound

User-generated map data; mostly clean but place names and tags have been used for graffiti before.

Green flags

Read-only operations against public OpenStreetMap APIs
No credentials or environment variables required
Well-scoped functionality limited to location services
Standard uvx installation method
Uses established OSM infrastructure (Nominatim, OSRM, Overpass)

Red flags

Solo maintainer with minimal GitHub activity and thin commit history
No dependency pinning visible in repository
Very limited community engagement, few stars/forks
No changelog or versioning strategy documented

Permissions requested

Outbound network

Assessed by Delv Editorial using public metadata. Grades are advisory and update as the ecosystem changes. They do not replace your own review of permissions and code before granting an agent access to sensitive systems.

Install

uvx osm-mcp-server

Review

OpenStreetMap MCP wraps the Nominatim geocoding API and OSRM routing service into a clean MCP interface. It does four things well: forward and reverse geocoding, turn-by-turn directions, nearby place searches, and neighbourhood boundary lookups. No API key needed, which is rare and genuinely useful for prototyping or internal tools. I'd reach for this when building location-aware prototypes or doing quick geographical research without the friction of Google Maps API quotas. The geocoding is solid for addresses in well-mapped regions. Reverse geocoding returns structured data (city, postcode, country) that you can feed straight into other tools. The routing gives you actual turn instructions and distance estimates, not just a polyline. Neighbourhood lookups are surprisingly handy if you're doing demographic research or trying to understand what locals call a specific area. The main quirk is that you're relying on public Nominatim and OSRM instances, which means rate limits you don't control and occasional slowness. OpenStreetMap data quality varies wildly by region. In London or Berlin, it's excellent. In rural areas or less-mapped countries, you'll get patchy results or none at all. The nearby search works, but it's not as comprehensive as commercial alternatives because it depends on what volunteers have tagged in OSM. Installation is trivial with uvx, and it works immediately in Claude Desktop without configuration. The tool respects Nominatim's usage policy by default, but if you're planning to hammer it with requests, you should set up your own Nominatim instance and point the server there. The repo doesn't document how to do that, which is a gap. This is not a replacement for production mapping services. It's a zero-friction way to add location intelligence to Claude conversations or quick scripts. If you're building a customer-facing app with SLAs, use a paid service. If you're exploring a dataset with addresses, sketching out a route planner, or just need to know what neighbourhood a coordinate falls in, this does the job without ceremony.

Verdict

Install this if you need quick geocoding or routing in Claude without API keys or billing setup. Skip it if you need guaranteed uptime, global coverage, or rich POI data. It's a solid utility for prototyping and research, not production infrastructure.

Good at

No API key required, which removes friction for prototyping and internal tools.
Returns structured geocoding data that's easy to parse and use in downstream workflows.
Routing includes actual turn-by-turn instructions, not just coordinates.
Neighbourhood lookups are genuinely useful for demographic research or understanding local geography.
Installation is one command with uvx, and it works immediately in Claude Desktop.

Watch out

Relies on public Nominatim and OSRM instances, so you're subject to rate limits and occasional slowness you can't control.
OpenStreetMap data quality is inconsistent, excellent in major cities but patchy in rural or less-mapped regions.
No documentation on how to point the server at your own Nominatim instance for higher request volumes.
Nearby search results are less comprehensive than commercial services because they depend on volunteer tagging.
Not suitable for production use cases that require uptime guarantees or SLAs.

Use cases

geocoding
routing directions
neighbourhood research
location-aware apps

Getting started

1. Run `uvx osm-mcp-server` to install and start the server. 2. Add the server to your Claude Desktop config under the `mcpServers` section with the command `uvx osm-mcp-server`. 3. Restart Claude Desktop and verify the tools appear by asking Claude to geocode an address or find a route. 4. Test with a well-mapped city first (London, New York, Tokyo) to confirm it works before trying rural or less-documented areas. 5. Watch out for rate limits on public instances if you're making many requests in quick succession.

Works with

Claude DesktopClaude CodeCursor