Which Maps API should I use?

Question

I am creating a webpage that includes maps for my software engineering thesis. The page will include following features:

• Show a specific location and save it to a database;
• Showing different roads in the same map and save then to database;
• Getting the nearest road that passes nearby a specific location pointed by a user - a little search function;
• Users might be allowed to create different roads, which can be saved in a database.

The thing is that the service (API) used should be free. For this reason, we might not be using Google Maps.

We are using Java for the Model Classes.

Which maps API can I use?
How can I ask it which of the roads is nearest to a certain point (location) on the map?

Answer 1

Google Maps API is Free as long as you are not using more than a certain amount of traffic. If its for a class project it should be fine, but if that project turned into a commercial site, it would become expensive.