What is Foursquare used for?

Foursquare offers location data, places APIs and a geospatial intelligence platform for marketers, developers and analysts, plus consumer discovery apps. It is a good fit for adding venue search to an app, measuring the impact of advertising on store visits and analyzing movement patterns with spatial data.

Yes. Foursquare has a free plan, and paid plans start at $25 per month. A free trial is also available.

Is Foursquare open source?

No. Foursquare is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. In the Maps & Navigation category, open-source options include OpenStreetMap, Organic Maps and Dawarich.

What are some alternatives to Foursquare?

Foursquare competes with Google Maps Platform, HERE Technologies and Mapbox.

Foursquare: features, pricing and alternatives

About Foursquare

Foursquare is a location technology company that sells places data and geospatial tools to businesses, and also runs consumer apps for discovering and checking in to venues. Its data includes a large set of points of interest and foot traffic information, which marketers, developers and analysts use to understand where people go.

The product line is split by audience. Marketers get attribution, audience and proximity products for advertising. Analysts and data teams get the Geospatial Intelligence Platform, with Spatial Workbench, Spatial H3 Hub, Spatial Desktop and Spatial Studio. Developers get a Dev Console, a Places API and a Movement SDK, and Places Data includes POI data, an open-source data release and business listings. Consumer apps include Swarm and Superlocal. It is a hosted commercial service.

Key features

Places API for venue and POI data
Movement SDK for location-aware apps
Attribution, audience and proximity advertising tools
Spatial Workbench and H3 Hub for analysts
Open-source places data release
Swarm check-in app

Good fit for

→Adding venue search to an app
→Measuring the impact of advertising on store visits
→Analyzing movement patterns with spatial data

Tags: location-data; places-api; geospatial; poi; advertising; api; analytics; sdk

Foursquare: questions and answers

What is Foursquare used for?: Foursquare offers location data, places APIs and a geospatial intelligence platform for marketers, developers and analysts, plus consumer discovery apps. It is a good fit for adding venue search to an app, measuring the impact of advertising on store visits and analyzing movement patterns with spatial data.
Is Foursquare free?: Yes. Foursquare has a free plan, and paid plans start at $25 per month. A free trial is also available.
Is Foursquare open source?: No. Foursquare is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. In the Maps & Navigation category, open-source options include OpenStreetMap, Organic Maps and Dawarich.
What are some alternatives to Foursquare?: Foursquare competes with Google Maps Platform, HERE Technologies and Mapbox.