[postgis-users] Which tool/referecence for adress geocoding ?

[Stephen Woodbridge]

On 1/14/2015 4:21 AM, Laurent CELATI wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> i have to geocode several corporates sites ( a big excel file). I would
> like geocode this file thanks to the adress.
>
> 1/ Could you tell me the best tool for this task (accuracy,
> performance,ease of use,etc.). On my station, i have *Postgis, Qgis,
> mapinfo. *
>
> 2/ is it better to use a web tool or a desktop GIS?
>
> 3/ I guess I must have a reference, a database for the streets network?
> How do I choose it? And how to get it?
>
> In advance, thank you very much.


Laurent,

I think the key points in this decision are:

1. how many records do you need to geocode?
2. what coverage area does it represent?
3. how often will you need to do this?

If you want to build your own, then you need to get data and load it 
into your geocoder, which ever tool you decide to use. Good data is 
expensive, loading data may or may not be easy. This effort and expense 
only makes sense if you have a very large number of locations or you 
expect that you will need to do a large number over time.

Using a web service avoids the issues above but you pay by some number 
of transactions. So you have lower upfront costs and you can change 
services if you don't like the service or the results.

You will probably wnat to generate a simple perl/python/php script to 
read your addresses and geocode them regardless of your choice.

Hope this helps.

-Steve