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Introduction
A few years back, there existed a problem with the fintech and financial analytics space. It was the lack of financial APIs available to support their products, services, research, etc. It was so tough to find a reliable API provider with cutting-edge features. On top of that, the pricing of the available APIs was so hefty due to its lack of availability in the market.
But now, the financial API landscape is completely transformed eliminating all of the previously associated problems. There are a plethora of APIs available to choose from with a competitive pricing structure for staying ahead in the market. However, this abundant availability creates a new problem for its users. It is the toughness that comes from choosing the right financial API suitable for their needs. That’s why, today I’m introducing you to a perfectly curated list of the best financial APIs available in the market right now.
The APIs are ranked based on three criteria which are ease of use, documentation, and number of features provided. I’ve personally tested all the APIs and here are the top 7 financial APIs to try out in 2024 (ranked):
EOD Historical Data (EODHD)
Alpha Vantage
Intrinio
Polygon.io
FMP Cloud (by FinancialModelingPrep)
Twelve Data
Finnhub
1. EOD Historical Data
EOD Historical Data, shortly known as EODHD, tops this list due to a varied number of reasons.
First is the number of API endpoints being provided. There is almost an infinite number of endpoints designed for every possible scenario. Ranging from the basic ones like the historical data APIs all the way to the stock screener and economic calendar APIs come in handy for both professional and educational works. They also support assets other than stocks such as commodities, cryptocurrency, and indices to name a few. Their newest release, stock tick data API allows for conducting effective backtesting processes which I think is truly game-changing
Secondly, EOD Historical Data maintains well-structured documentation of their APIs in a systematic order to reduce confusion among the users. Each and every API provided by them has an individually dedicated page explaining the API’s use cases along with practical and real-world examples. In addition to their wonderful documentation, they have something called EODHD Academy which features amazing articles about their APIs written by experts in the field.
Thirdly, ease of use. The response we get from calling EODHD’s APIs is one of the cleanest data I’ve ever seen to work with. It helps shorten the process of data cleaning and data manipulation where most beginners get stuck. Talking about beginners, to lessen the coding burden, EODHD provides no-code solutions to get the desired data feasibly and seamlessly. Their no-code Spreadsheet feature is an amazing and powerful tool for easily obtaining all kinds of data like stock, crypto, and forex.
Let’s talk about pricing. The free plan is well designed for people experimenting with different stock APIs that include all the basic market data with 20 API calls per day. Professionalists and developers who want to build commercial applications can opt-in for the All-in-one package available for $79.99 which comes with 100,000 API calls per day and accessibility to the endless amount of data provided by EODHD. They also have a tailored service for companies who want to make additional API calls.
One thing I truly appreciate about EODHD’s payment structure is its straightforwardness. While other companies use fuzzy terms like API credits and API messages, EODHD is very precise about the features offered in each subscription plan making things much clearer on their users’ side. Speaking of drawbacks and limitations, I personally think there are not any which is why it tops my list.
Apart from the mentioned points, there are a few more that are worth looking into. Their API usage dashboard is one of the best with a range of details, charts, and statistics. Following that, their marketplace is a great place for companies to buy data directly from exchanges.
Overall, EOD Historical Data is one of the best reliable resources out there and suitable for both beginners who are just starting out and advanced users for research works and building commercial applications.
2. Alpha Vantage
It is not a big deal when you hear that Alpha Vantage is the go-to for everyone who is just starting out. This is mainly because of their incredible free tier plan that costs zero dollars providing 500 API calls per day with access to almost every API endpoint provided by them ranging from historical and fundamental data to technical indicators.
One thing that truly sets apart Alpha Vantage from the rest is its focus on data reliability. Alpha Vantage is the only data provider in this list that is an official vendor of NASDAQ. This makes Alpha Vantage the go-to for developers who want to build commercial applications that are easily scalable.
The documentation of Alpha Vantage is very precise comprising live examples and code snippets. Also, the way the documentation is designed is almost identical to the twelve data’s documentation with separate sub-heads and labels to emphasize APIs that are used most frequently among the users.
Overall, for both beginners and advanced users, Alpha Vantage is the most recommended place to start as it has everything required for financial market participants to master the basics and provides some of the greatest free-tier plans in all of the land. It can also be a great platform for developers who seek data reliability and accuracy.
3. Intrinio
Intrinio is a special one since it is my go-to for developing mainstream applications and massive projects. It is mainly due to the high accuracy that comes along with the data being provided and the colossal amount of API endpoints they provide.
Just like the previously discussed financial APIs, Intrinio’s product page is almost to perfection conveying the core message precisely without using fuzzy words and they take the user experience to the next level with the addition of a chatbot that solves our queries in real-time finding the best solutions possible.
Speaking of documentation, they have a great one but failed to categorize it into different sub-heads making the API documentation look clumsier. But on a side note, the documentation has some of the greatest live examples with clear-cut explanations.
The pricing of Intrinio is one of my favorite ones on this list. First off, they separated their packages based on the asset type (Options and Equities) making it easy for the users to opt-in for the right package suited best for them in case of usefulness. Secondly, the services offered in each package are very straightforward and explained in a very detailed manner.
While Intrinio might be one of the best players in the game for large-scale applications, it is also one of the major drawbacks since beginners or hobbyists would be overwhelmed by the services being offered by them. They will be comparatively less benefitted from the platform and so are the satisfactory levels.
So it is safe to say that Intrinio can be one of the best places if you’re looking for financial APIs to build huge applications but recommended for beginners to give it a second thought before hopping on into any of their packages.
4. Polygon.io
The thing that specifically made me love Polygon.io is their Resources page where one can find educational content other than just plain blogs or articles. It includes interesting code samples, real-world examples of their API endpoints, and much more. This makes one dwell and intrigued about the APIs provided by Polygon.io.
Talking about their pricing, there are two interesting things about it. Firstly, the services mentioned in each plan are very straightforward and the interface of their pricing page is designed in such a way that makes it easier for users to compare different plans. Secondly, Polygon.io’s pricing is not just limited to a basic and an advanced plan but consists of a vast amount of plans classified on the basis of the assets (stock, crypto and forex, and options). This comes in handy since one can choose from a broad variety of options and opt-in to a plan that suits the purposes perfectly.
Speaking of their documentation, it is well maintained and classified into different heads to avoid clumsiness. But the place where Polygon.io lags is the availability of API endpoints.
While Polygon.io covers almost all the basic ones such as the historical and fundamental data, it still misses specific ones like the financial news API and the sentimental data API. Because of its relatively low amount of API endpoints, it is not recommended for enterprises to scale large applications but can be a good place for beginners to start off.
5. FinancialModelingPrep (FMP)
FinancialModelingPrep’s FMP Clouwd is an emerging API provider in the market. In fact, it’s the youngest player in this whole list. But it’s quite impressive to see their rapid growth and finding their way into this heavily competitive market.
FMP Cloud checks all the boxes of a very good, trustworthy, and high-quality API provider. They have a great product page with a beautiful design, their pricing structure is pretty solid with well-drawn comparisons between each plan, the documentation of the APIs is very understandable and well-structured, and the ease of use of the APIs is greatly appreciated.
Like EOD Historical Data, FMP Cloud also maintains a dedicated page for featuring articles about their APIs written by experts. One of the truly distinguishing features of FMP Cloud is its “Extras” tab in the navigation bar which has a number of incredibly useful pages for educating ourselves and effective use of their APIs.
While everything is so positive, there is one aspect in which FMP Cloud lags and it’s the slight margin of error in its data. There are a lot of users who have reported numerous occurrences of inaccurate data. Though the margin of error is insignificant, it’s still a major point to look into.
On the whole, FMP Cloud is a great place where one can find some interesting API endpoints at an affordable price. If you’re not much into data accuracy, FMP Cloud is your go-to for all kinds of projects and research.
6. Twelve Data
Moving on to the sixth financial API in our list comes Twelve Data.
Twelve Data nails their story-telling with their beautifully designed product page that is both intriguing and abstract in nature but more importantly, actually reveals what they offer through various code snippets and real-world examples.
Twelve data’s API collection is relatively less but includes all the necessary ones. Coming to ease of use, it is equally significant to the previous ones providing some of the well-structured and cleanest API responses.
The documentation of twelve data’s APIs is a special one because apart from being well-maintained and systematically organized, each and every API is explained with examples consisting of the HTTP request URL and the JSON response received by calling it. This helps users to actually visualize how the data looks once it has been extracted and assists with planning the data cleaning and manipulation processes accordingly.
Another tiny feature I love about their documentation is how they labeled different API endpoints based on their importance. This doesn’t serve much purpose but helps acknowledge the APIs that are of most use and navigate to them easily and seamlessly.
One final feature I would like to add to their documentation is the efficient way of categorizing different APIs under separate heads. This incredibly boosts the user experience as it completely eradicates the frustrating process of searching ourselves the API endpoints’ documentation.
The place where Twelve Data lags is their confusing pricing system as it works in a different way on the basis of something called API credit. Basically, each and every API endpoint has its own data weight or a specific number of allotted credits and they are used when the API is called. Also, every time the user makes an API call, one more credit is used automatically in addition to the API endpoint’s data weight to account for the internal costs that help deliver the desired data. Sounds fuzzy, right?
Maybe an advanced user might understand the concept but a beginner would find it tough to get a better grip of it. Not to mention, the whole pricing system of twelve data is solely based on the API credits basis so they could’ve done a better job explaining the concept more elaborately.
Other than that, maybe it is not well-suited for building world-class massive applications given the limited number of API endpoints, but it is still one of the best places to start off.
7. Finnhub
There is pretty much nothing wrong with Finnhub. They have a massive amount of API endpoints with never-before-heard data such as the analyst’s estimates data, thematic investing data, and deep historical data to name a few.
Though their website is not the best one, it is almost clear in conveying the message and the services being offered to their users. They have great documentation with a similar labeling system we discussed before with the other financial APIs. Like Polygon.io's pricing system, they provide a varied range of plans to choose from.
While all that is good to hear, here is the most frustrating part with Finnhub. The APIs that can be accessed using a free account is so limited and even misses some of the most basic ones. All the financial APIs mentioned before offer more than what we needed in a free-tier account but that’s not the case with Finnhub.
Though it is understandable that Finnhub is triggering us to opt-in for a plan using this strategy, the user experience is very annoying. Especially for someone who just wants to explore the API library of different financial APIs, Finnhub is going to be one of the hateful ones. But other than that, Finnhub could be a great resource for market data.
Closing Notes
It is so good to see the emergence of a lot of financial API providers in the data space representing a strong interest in this specific domain. A few years ago, there were only two big players in this industry, Google Stock API and Yahoo Financial API, but both of these were either shut down or surpassed by their massive number of competitors.
One important thing I want to highlight in this article is that this list does not represent a general consensus but just a personal opinion of mine. Some of the important takeaways of this article are:
Data has become more than important, so be careful with choosing your go-to financial API as it could have sensitive effects.
Have your own set of criteria like ease of use and documentation to rank the APIs you use efficiently.
Be clear with the pricing system of a specific financial API you want to subscribe to.
Apart from the listed financial APIs in this article, I would recommend exploring further APIs and there is a chance you would end up on some of the best APIs well suited for your purposes.
With that being said, you’ve reached the end of the article. Hope you learned something new and useful from this article. Also, if you know other financial APIs better than the ones listed in this article, don’t forget to mention those in the comments section.