
Show HN: IPLocate.io – a free IP geolocation service - tallytarik
https://www.iplocate.io
======
tallytarik
Hi HN! I've developed IPLocate.io, a super simple IP geolocation service to
return data like country, city, timezone, etc. for IP addresses.

It's free up to 1,500 requests per day, beyond which we have a couple of paid
plans to accommodate higher limits.

We've got some code samples for various languages on the home page as well as
documentation by Apiary.

It's a super simple Rails app powered by MaxMind data.

I've been developing in the web and mobile space for years, but this is my
first web project I'm finally releasing to the public - I'm not expecting it
to be a money maker but just wanted to get a feel for reaction from the hacker
community!

~~~
coderholic
Congrats on the launch! Looks very similar to my service,
[https://ipinfo.io](https://ipinfo.io) :) I launched that around 3 years ago
and at the time there weren't even any paid plans. It now handles close to 500
million API requests a day.

I'd recommend killing the unlimited plan - you'll lose out on revenue with
that.

Good luck! Feel free to reach out to me if there's anything you think I could
help with.

~~~
tallytarik
Thank you! And congratulations on 500m requests per day - that's insane!

Thanks for the tip on pricing, the plans are essentially guesswork at the
moment until I see some real users with real usage. I checked out some other
services (including yours ;) ) and saw a wide range of pricing, some that had
unlimited plans and some that didn't. Will definitely be something to revisit
in the future.

~~~
JeanMarcS
I think coderholic gave you a good advice. If you're on amazon with a pay per
use plan, you should immediately do the math of what it's going to cost you if
someone does 1M request a day.

Let's say someone who make an equivalent service, sells cheaper plans, and
uses yours for example.

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sitepodmatt
Hmmm...

The output is practically the same as
[https://freegeoip.net/json/](https://freegeoip.net/json/)

But their free limit is a whooping 240x yours (and it's been very reliable for
a client of mine). Are you piggybacking/bootstrapping off this?

Why iplocate.io rather than the reliable freegeoip.net

------
justboxing
How is this different from

[https://db-ip.com/api](https://db-ip.com/api)

[https://ipapi.co](https://ipapi.co)

[https://freegeoip.net](https://freegeoip.net)

[http://ipinfodb.com](http://ipinfodb.com)

[https://www.iplocation.net](https://www.iplocation.net)

[http://neutrinoapi.com](http://neutrinoapi.com)

[http://www.ip2location.com](http://www.ip2location.com)

[https://www.telize.com](https://www.telize.com)

and a few dozen more....?[1]

[1] Source:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14681118](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14681118)

------
nodesocket
What is the redundancy on this service? CloudFlare in front. How about the
backends? Are you cross zone? Cross region?

Also, nitpick, but using `X-` headers are deprecated, even though everybody
still does it. Recommend changing auth header to `IPLocate-API-Key`.

~~~
tallytarik
It's currently hosted on AWS, multi-instance in a single AZ. It has the
ability to scale across zones easily, but my priority was to make sure I'm not
hit with unreasonable costs for my small side project while it has 1 user. :)

Thanks for the tip about the header - I didn't know that! I can certainly
change the name.

~~~
nodesocket
Good luck. I'm running a Go app
([https://github.com/fiorix/freegeoip](https://github.com/fiorix/freegeoip))
on a single f1-micro in Google Cloud for my startup. It works, no problems, no
fuss, but certainly can see lots of people paying for GeoIP. Maybe focus on
creating a Heroku plugin?

------
tequila_shot
how is this different from ipinfo.info?

curl ipinfo.io gives me the same info.

------
dsl
Have you talked to MaxMind about becoming an authorized data reseller? The
downloadable data file (which I assume you are using), does not allow selling
lookups as a service.

[https://support.maxmind.com/geoip-faq/geoip2-and-geoip-
legac...](https://support.maxmind.com/geoip-faq/geoip2-and-geoip-legacy-
license/can-i-set-up-a-website-where-my-clients-can-enter-an-ip-address-and-
get-geoip2-information-back/)

~~~
tallytarik
The database being used is under a licence that allows commercial use :)

------
xref
I wonder how these services will work with ipv6, my address from hurricane
electric just returns "North America"

------
rkwasny
I would pay for an API that will let me lookup company name based on IP
address, anyone providing this type of service?

~~~
coderholic
We have a company details API that does exactly that at ipinfo.io - get in
touch at support@ipinfo.io if you'd like more details or see
[https://ipinfo.io/products](https://ipinfo.io/products)

