Is hearthmap a free alternative to AreaVibes?

Yes if you want the numbers behind a livability rating. hearthmap is free and lets you map and weight those numbers yourself. AreaVibes is the better fit if you want their Livability Score, amenity data, or Canadian cities.

Does hearthmap have a livability score?

Not a single house score. Match lets you assign weights to the metrics you care about and scores every region against those weights. Two users get two different maps. That is the point: a livability score always embeds someone else’s idea of what matters.

Does hearthmap cover Canada?

No. hearthmap is United States only. AreaVibes scores cities in both the US and Canada. If you need Canadian coverage, use AreaVibes (or a Canadian source).

Which is better for comparing cost of living?

hearthmap shows the housing pieces separately: median price, rent, property tax, and county homeowners insurance, plus income. AreaVibes folds cost of living into the Livability Score. Use hearthmap if you want the dollar figures; use AreaVibes if you want cost as one ingredient in a 0–100 score.

All comparisons

Comparison

hearthmap vs AreaVibes

hearthmap is a free alternative to AreaVibes for people who want to see and weight the raw metrics themselves on a US map. AreaVibes is stronger if you want a single Livability Score out of 100, including for cities in Canada.

Use hearthmap if

You do not trust a single 0–100 score and want to see price, tax, insurance, crime, and risk separately.
You want to set your own weights, or set hard limits (price under X, flood risk under Y).
You need county-level homeowners insurance or a national choropleth, not a city score page.
You want a CSV or a map you can cite under CC BY 4.0.

Use AreaVibes if

You want one number that already combines amenities, commute, cost, crime, and schools.
You are comparing cities in Canada as well as the US.
Nearby amenities and a “best cities” list are more useful to you than a data map.

Side by side

hearthmap compared with AreaVibes
Dimension	hearthmap	AreaVibes
Price	Free	Free, ad-supported
Primary output	Interactive choropleth and user-weighted Match score	Livability Score (0–100) for a city, neighborhood, or address
Score method	You choose the metrics and the weights	Fixed algorithm across amenities, commute, cost, crime, jobs, health, schools, housing, and user ratings
Coverage	United States only, six geographic levels	United States and Canada, 45,000-plus areas
Map	National interactive map, any metric	Place pages and a livability-oriented map of scored areas
Amenities	Not an amenities / “things nearby” product	Nearby amenities are a Livability Score input
Homeowners insurance	County-level premiums from mortgage-escrow data	Not a published county insurance dataset
Reviews	None. Numbers only	User ratings feed the Livability Score
Rankings	Single-metric county rankings you can filter by state	Best-cities lists ranked by Livability Score
Downloads and reuse	CSV and maps under CC BY 4.0	On-site scores. Not a public data download

What AreaVibes is

AreaVibes scores cities, neighborhoods, and addresses with a Livability Score out of 100. The score mixes amenities, commute, cost of living, crime, employment, health and safety, schools, housing, and user ratings. The site ranks 45,000-plus areas in the United States and Canada and publishes best-cities lists from that score. The unit of work is “give this place a number.”

What hearthmap is

hearthmap.app is a free, data-only interactive map and recommender for deciding where to live in the United States, covering 100+ metrics including home prices, total monthly housing payment, property tax, homeowners insurance, natural disaster risk, schools, crime, demographics, and political lean, at state, county, town, ZIP, census-tract, and block-group resolution. There is no house livability number.

Match will score every region, but only after you set the weights. Shade the map by one metric, or open a single-metric ranking, when you want the input rather than a blend. Tables and CSVs (including county insurance) are public under CC BY 4.0.

Where they overlap

Both are free, both are for “where should I live,” and both will show cost, crime, schools, and housing for a US place. Both will produce a ranking. AreaVibes ranks by Livability Score. hearthmap ranks by the one metric you picked, or by the weights you typed.

Where they differ

One score vs the pieces

A Livability Score is convenient. It is also an opinion: amenities count, user ratings count, and you cannot see how much of the 86 is schools versus crime versus rent. hearthmap’s bet is that people relocating already have opinions, and they need the pieces. A teacher and a retiree should not get the same 86.

If you want one number to scan a list of cities, AreaVibes is faster. If you want to know why two towns with the same vibe-score feel different when you look at insurance or flood risk, open hearthmap.

Amenities and Canada

AreaVibes includes nearby amenities in the score and covers Canadian cities. hearthmap does neither. If you are comparing Vancouver to Seattle, or you care about “things nearby” as a scored input, AreaVibes is the tool that has that. hearthmap is United States data on Census geographies.

Map vs profile

AreaVibes is a scored directory: look up a place, get a score, compare to nearby scored places. hearthmap is a map: look at the country, pick a layer, zoom. That is why insurance, disaster risk, and tax are more useful here. They have a geography, and the geography is the point.

A practical way to use both

If you want a first-pass list of cities, AreaVibes’ Livability Score is a fine filter. Take the names that survive, then open them on hearthmap and look at the layers AreaVibes folded together: price, tax, insurance, crime, and risk. Keep the score for browsing. Use the map before you book a flight.

See the numbers on the map

Shade any metric, compare places, or look up county homeowners insurance. Free, data-only, no listings.

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Frequently asked questions

Is hearthmap a free alternative to AreaVibes?: Yes if you want the numbers behind a livability rating. hearthmap is free and lets you map and weight those numbers yourself. AreaVibes is the better fit if you want their Livability Score, amenity data, or Canadian cities.
Does hearthmap have a livability score?: Not a single house score. Match lets you assign weights to the metrics you care about and scores every region against those weights. Two users get two different maps. That is the point: a livability score always embeds someone else’s idea of what matters.
Does hearthmap cover Canada?: No. hearthmap is United States only. AreaVibes scores cities in both the US and Canada. If you need Canadian coverage, use AreaVibes (or a Canadian source).
Which is better for comparing cost of living?: hearthmap shows the housing pieces separately: median price, rent, property tax, and county homeowners insurance, plus income. AreaVibes folds cost of living into the Livability Score. Use hearthmap if you want the dollar figures; use AreaVibes if you want cost as one ingredient in a 0–100 score.

More comparisons

hearthmap vs Niche

hearthmap is a free Niche alternative if you want raw numbers on a map. Niche is stronger for school and college reviews and letter grades.

hearthmap vs BestPlaces

hearthmap is a free BestPlaces alternative if you want a national interactive map and county insurance data. BestPlaces is stronger for classic city-to-city cost-of-living and climate tables.

hearthmap vs NeighborhoodScout

hearthmap is a free NeighborhoodScout alternative for public, region-level data. NeighborhoodScout is a paid professional product for address-level crime models and investment reports.