We tested whether “free” address data from OpenStreetMap is production-ready. What its quality really costs

We compared close to 8.4 million addresses from OpenStreetMap against the Algolytics reference address database, which we run in production for telecommunications, finance and logistics. We set out to test whether free access to data means it is ready for production - across four dimensions: completeness, correctness, timeliness and heterogeneity. In this article we explain why we produced the report, how we prepared it, what conclusions it leads to, and how much it really costs to bring “free” data up to production quality.

Why did we run this analysis?

Companies that need a nationwide address database naturally consider using freely available data - such as OpenStreetMap or public registers. At first glance it seems that, since addres