IP Geo API

IP Geo API vs DB-IP in 2026: REST-First vs DB-Download — Which EU Vendor Wins for Your Stack?

6-minute read · 2026 pricing · honest assessment

DB-IP is one of the few IP geolocation vendors most teams actually shortlist twice — once on the technical merits (mature dataset, MMDB schema compatibility with MaxMind, daily-updated paid tier) and once on the GDPR posture (Brussels HQ, unambiguously EU jurisdiction). Both passes earn DB-IP a place on the comparison list. The question this post answers isn’t “which vendor is more European” — both are. The question is whether DB-IP’s database-download-plus-REST delivery model and per-axis pricing structure are still the right shape for a 2026 cloud-native stack, or whether a REST-only EU-hosted alternative wins on total cost of ownership.

This post lays out the trade-offs without marketing varnish.

Looking for the full feature matrix and field-by-field migration guide? Jump straight to the DB-IP alternative comparison →.

The 60-second take

What you care about Choose
Attribution-free free tier (no link back to vendor on public pages) IP Geo API
VPN/Proxy/Tor detection bundled on every tier IP Geo API
EUR billing, monthly, cancel anytime IP Geo API
REST-only integration, no MMDB to maintain IP Geo API
EU edges only (no global CDN edges outside EU) IP Geo API
Single-product vendor focus IP Geo API
Offline / air-gapped MMDB lookups DB-IP
MaxMind-compatible MMDB schema (drop-in replacement for GeoIP2 codebases) DB-IP
Per-axis micro-pricing for high-volume specialists DB-IP
15+ year operating track record DB-IP
connectionType / usageType / IDD-code fields DB-IP

Pick the row that’s the dealbreaker. The split is unusually sharp here because DB-IP is the only major EU-domiciled competitor we routinely lose to — for the rows where DB-IP wins, the wedge is real and we don’t pretend otherwise. For the rows where IP Geo API wins, the wedge is also real and worth a switch consideration.

The real reasons teams switch from DB-IP

Three switch stories repeat:

Story 1: The free-tier attribution clause. A team starts with DB-IP’s free 1.000 req/day for early development, ships their MVP, and at the launch review legal flags the CC-BY 4.0 attribution clause: any public page that displays geolocation data must carry a visible link back to db-ip.com. For internal dashboards and developer tools, that’s a non-issue. For a customer-facing B2B SaaS — where the homepage, pricing page, or sign-up flow uses geolocation for currency display, country-pricing, or fraud screening — it means a vendor link in the footer of every page that touches IP data. Most teams either upgrade to DB-IP paid (USD 19/mo+) or look for an attribution-free alternative. IP Geo API’s free tier carries no attribution requirement — use it on public pages, in production, in your customer-facing flows, no link back.

Story 2: The per-axis subscription stack. A fraud-prevention team starts on DB-IP’s IP-to-Location dataset, adds the Anonymous dataset for proxy detection, then needs the Datacenter dataset for hosting-IP filtering, then needs the IP-to-ISP add-on. By month 18 they’re managing 4 separate subscriptions on 4 separate renewal cycles, with separate invoices, all USD-denominated. IP Geo API ships is_vpn, is_proxy, is_tor, is_datacenter, is_residential, plus full ASN data, on every response, every tier — one product, one EUR invoice, one renewal cycle.

Story 3: The MMDB sync ops cycle. A team on DB-IP’s paid daily-updated MMDB sets up a cron to pull the latest file, validate the checksum, deploy to staging, smoke-test, deploy to prod. Six months in, they have an on-call engineer who knows how to debug the MMDB-reader library and a runbook for “DB-IP MMDB pull failed last night.” For any team whose primary product isn’t IP geolocation, that’s recurring ops overhead that doesn’t compound into product value. IP Geo API is a single REST endpoint — GET https://ipgeo.10b.app/v1/{ip} — with daily server-side updates and no client-side sync. Your deploy pipeline doesn’t know IP geolocation exists.

A fourth, lower-frequency switch story: EUR vs USD billing. DB-IP prices in USD on monthly invoices. For EU-domiciled buyers, that’s an FX exposure (often 1-3% per invoice via card-issuer FX fees) and unpredictable EUR cash-flow planning. IP Geo API is EUR-invoiced, monthly, with iDEAL/SEPA/Bancontact through Mollie.

If none of these matter for your stack, you don’t have a switching reason. Stay with DB-IP and skip the rest of this post.

The real reasons to not switch (yet)

We try to be straight about this because the fastest way to lose a customer is to oversell the migration.

What migration actually looks like

For most teams on the DB-IP REST API, migration is two function-signature changes and a field-name remap. The compare page has the full mapping table; the headline mappings are countryCode → country.code, stateProv → region.name, district/city → city.name, latitude/longitude → location.lat/location.lon, asNumber → asn.number (free tier on IP Geo API), and threatLevel (DB-IP Threat dataset) → is_vpn/is_proxy/is_tor/is_datacenter (split flags, free tier on IP Geo API).

For teams on the DB-IP MMDB-download model, the migration is conceptual rather than field-by-field: replace the local reader.city(ip) call (or your language’s equivalent) with an HTTP GET to IP Geo API. Cache hot IPs in Redis or equivalent for p95 latency parity. Most teams see a 5-25ms latency increase versus local MMDB lookup, which is negligible for the request paths IP geolocation typically sits on (login, signup, geo-pricing, fraud-scoring) but matters if you’re inline in a CDN edge serving sub-millisecond responses.

The non-obvious step is dual-write for 24-48h. Run both systems in parallel, log every diff between responses, audit the diff list. The most common surprises are (a) DB-IP’s district field collapsing to city in IP Geo API (we don’t expose district), (b) connectionType and usageType not having an IP Geo API equivalent (if you depend on these, stop the migration), and © regional naming for non-English geographies — we follow ISO-3166-2 codes consistently, DB-IP follows their own internal convention.

After that: flip the env var. Keep DB-IP credentials warm for 7 days as rollback insurance, then revoke / archive.

Full migration guide with curl examples and field-mapping table is on the DB-IP alternative comparison page.

Pricing math at three common volumes

Monthly volume DB-IP (estimated) IP Geo API list price Saving
100K req USD 19/mo Basic (geo only, no threat, no ASN) €29 situational — cheaper if you only need geo
1M req USD ~99 Pro + USD ~49 Anonymous = ~USD 148/mo combined €99 ~30% on combined feature parity
5M req Custom enterprise quote, USD-billed, multi-axis subscriptions €399 (custom) situational

Numbers above are list-price snapshots from the DB-IP pricing page on 2026-04-16. The amortized monthly cost looks lower for DB-IP at the 100K tier, but the comparison closes once you bundle: (a) Anonymous / Datacenter / Tor add-on subscriptions for full threat parity, (b) ASN add-on (free on IP Geo API), © FX fees on USD card-statement entries (1-3% typical for EU-issued cards), (d) ops-engineer time on the MMDB sync cycle if you go the DB-download route (commonly 2-4h/mo at €50-100/h fully loaded).

The pricing-only comparison is misleading because the two models price different things. DB-IP’s per-axis pricing wins if you’re a high-volume specialist who only needs one axis; IP Geo API’s bundled subscription wins if you need 2+ axes (which is most production fraud / personalization / analytics teams).

The comfortable indie / SMB / scaleup zone (100K-2M req/mo, multi-axis feature requirements) is where IP Geo API’s TCO story is unambiguously stronger. Above 5M req/mo on a single axis with MMDB-download, DB-IP has a defensible niche.

Trust check: should you trust this comparison?

Honest disclosure: this post is on the IP Geo API blog. We have a commercial reason to suggest switching. We tried to compensate for that bias by:

If you spot a factual error, email hello@ipgeo.10b.app — we’ll edit and add a correction note above the fold within 48h. We’d rather be cited as accurate than aggressive.

Try IP Geo API in 5 minutes

# 1. Sign up — no credit card, 1.000 lookups/day on free tier, no attribution
open https://ipgeo.10b.app/pricing

# 2. Test against a known IP (Google DNS)
curl https://ipgeo.10b.app/v1/lookup/8.8.8.8 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $IPGEO_API_KEY"

# 3. Compare the response against your existing DB-IP call
curl https://api.db-ip.com/v2/YOUR_DB_IP_KEY/8.8.8.8

Sign up free → · Full DB-IP comparison → · API reference →

FAQ

Is IP Geo API a fork or wrapper of DB-IP? No. We run our own ASN/geo dataset, threat-intel pipeline, and infra. The compare page lays out the data sourcing posture in detail.

Does the free tier really include VPN/Proxy/Tor detection? Yes — the same threat block is on every plan including 1K/day free. No DB-IP-Anonymous-equivalent add-on, no second invoice.

Can I run IP Geo API offline like a DB-IP MMDB file? No. IP Geo API is REST-only by design. If your architecture requires offline lookup (air-gapped network, sub-millisecond local lookup, telecom-scale on-prem), DB-IP’s MMDB model is the right tool.

What happens to my DB-IP subscription if I switch? Run it out — most DB-IP plans are monthly so the cancel cost is one month’s runway. Use the dual-write window to validate the switch, then archive credentials and don’t renew. We don’t auto-cancel for you — that’s between you and them.

Do you support all the field-types DB-IP returns? Country, region, city, lat/lng, postal code, timezone, ASN, ISP — yes, on every tier. connectionType, usageType, IDD code — not currently shipped. If you depend on these, DB-IP stays.

Both vendors are EU. What’s the GDPR difference? DB-IP HQ is Brussels (EU member state, EU jurisdiction); REST API is fronted by globally distributed CDN edges. IP Geo API HQ is Netherlands (EU member state, EU jurisdiction); REST API runs on EU-only edges (Hetzner Nuremberg + Vercel fra1 and ams). Both pass the “vendor is EU” filter; only IP Geo API also passes the “edges are EU” filter, which matters for some Article 30 records-of-processing.

Is the BV oprichting going to delay anything for me as a paying customer? No. Invoicing and DPA are already EU-jurisdictional through Eric’s eenmanszaak structure pre-BV; the BV transition (Q2 2026) is internal restructuring, no contract changes for customers.

Where can I see service status and incidents? Public status page: https://status.ipgeo.10b.app (90-day rolling history). Incidents post-mortemed within 5 business days.

Related reading

Practical companion (highly recommended if you’ve decided to switch):

Drop-in migration guides for adjacent providers (in case you’re consolidating multiple sources onto IP Geo API):

If you’re evaluating IP geolocation APIs against multiple providers, the other head-on comparisons in this series may help:

Industry deep-dives

Last reviewed 2026-05-09 · IP Geo API team · Comments / corrections: hello@ipgeo.10b.app

Pairs with the full DB-IP alternative comparison page — has the complete feature matrix, migration guide, and pricing snapshot.

Get early access — 50% off for 12 months

First 100 signups lock in 50% off any paid plan for the first year. No credit card required — we’ll email you at launch.