Comparison
hearthmap vs BestPlaces
hearthmap is a free alternative to Sperling's BestPlaces for people who want an interactive US map at county, town, ZIP, and tract level, including county homeowners insurance. BestPlaces is stronger if you want a classic city-to-city cost-of-living and climate comparison.
Use hearthmap if
- You want to see a metric across the whole country, not look up one city at a time.
- You need county, town, tract, or block-group resolution, not just city and ZIP.
- You want homeowners insurance next to price and property tax, or a true monthly cost of owning.
- You want to weight several factors yourself and have every region scored.
Use BestPlaces if
- You want a quick "Austin vs Denver" cost-of-living index in one table.
- Climate averages and comfort indexes are the main thing you are comparing.
- You prefer Sperling's long-running city pages for politics, religion, or historical COL.
Side by side
| Dimension | hearthmap | BestPlaces |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free, ad-supported |
| Primary output | Interactive choropleth and user-weighted Match score | City and ZIP profile pages plus a two-city comparison table |
| Cost of living | Home price, rent, property tax, insurance, and income on the map | Flagship cost-of-living index and city-vs-city calculator |
| Climate | Climate and disaster-risk metrics (FEMA NRI, weather) | Long-running climate profiles, a Sperling specialty |
| Geography | State, county, town, ZIP, census tract, block group | Cities, ZIP codes, and metro comparisons |
| Map | National interactive map you can shade by any metric | Place pages. Not a national choropleth |
| Homeowners insurance | County-level premiums from mortgage-escrow data | Not a published county insurance dataset |
| Politics and religion | Partisan lean and related civic metrics, shown neutrally | Long-standing politics and religion tables on city pages |
| Composite score | You set the weights in Match. No house livability index | Best-places style indexes on city pages |
| Downloads and reuse | CSV and maps under CC BY 4.0 | On-site tables. Not a public data download |
What BestPlaces is
Sperling's BestPlaces is the long-running city and ZIP factbook people have used for cost-of-living and climate comparisons for decades. The signature move is a two-city table: type Austin and Denver, get a cost-of-living index, climate averages, crime, and a stack of civic and lifestyle stats. The site is a library of place pages, not a national map.
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.
Instead of a city page, you get a choropleth. Pick median home price, property tax, or homeowners insurance and the country redraws. Zoom from states to counties to towns, ZIPs, tracts, and block groups. Compare up to four places on the compare tool, or rank counties on one metric at /best.
Where they overlap
Both are free, both are for relocation research, and both will show you housing cost, crime, climate, and politics for a US place. Both will let you hold two places next to each other. The difference is the unit of work: BestPlaces answers “tell me about these two cities.” hearthmap answers “show me this metric everywhere, then let me pick.”
Where they differ
Cost of living
BestPlaces is still the faster path to a single cost-of-living index between two cities. If that index is what you want, use it.
hearthmap does not publish Sperling's index. It publishes the housing bill in pieces: sale price, rent, property tax, and county homeowners insurance, next to household income. That is more useful when the thing you are deciding is a house payment, and it is the only national county-level insurance table of the two. The insurance window matters: most public studies are still state-level.
Climate vs disaster risk
BestPlaces’ climate pages (averages, comfort, snowfall) are a reason people still bookmark the site. hearthmap maps climate and FEMA National Risk Index layers so you can see which counties sit in high flood, wildfire, heat, or wind risk, and how that lines up with insurance. Use BestPlaces for a climate table. Use hearthmap when the question is “where is the risk, and what does the premium look like.”
Resolution
City and ZIP are the BestPlaces unit. hearthmap goes through six levels, including county subdivisions (towns) and census tracts. Inside a large metro the town and tract layers are the difference between “the city is expensive” and “these three towns on the same rail line are not.”
A practical way to use both
If you already know the two metros, open BestPlaces for the familiar COL and climate table. Then open hearthmap, shade the destination state by the metric you actually pay (price, tax, insurance), and use Match or compare to pick a county or town inside that metro. BestPlaces chooses the city. hearthmap chooses the part of the city.
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 BestPlaces?
- Yes, if what you want is to compare places on housing cost, tax, insurance, crime, schools, or risk. hearthmap is free and puts those numbers on a national map. BestPlaces is still the simpler tool for a two-city cost-of-living index and climate table.
- Can hearthmap do a city vs city comparison like BestPlaces?
- Yes. The compare tool puts up to four US states, counties, towns, or ZIP codes side by side on up to ten metrics. It shows the raw values, not a single cost-of-living index. If you want Sperling's index specifically, use BestPlaces.
- Which has better climate data?
- BestPlaces has been known for city climate profiles for decades. hearthmap maps climate and natural-disaster risk (including FEMA National Risk Index layers) so you can see the geography, not just a city average. Use BestPlaces for a climate table; use hearthmap to see which counties sit in high flood, wildfire, or heat risk.
- Does BestPlaces show homeowners insurance by county?
- BestPlaces does not publish a national county-level homeowners insurance dataset. hearthmap does, from mortgage-escrow payments, with per-state tables and a free CSV.
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 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.
hearthmap vs AreaVibes
hearthmap is a free AreaVibes alternative if you want to see and weight the raw metrics. AreaVibes is stronger if you want a single Livability Score, including for cities in Canada.