Market Data and Trading APIs

Massive, the rebranded Polygon.io, supplies real-time and historical market data for US stocks, options, indices, forex and futures through REST and WebSocket APIs. A limited free tier covers delayed and historical stock data for testing, while options chains with Greeks and full real-time access require a paid plan starting around $29/month. Suits developers building trading bots or backtests.

Best for: Developers building trading bots and backtesting systems

• websocket
• options chain
• historical data
• free tier
• flat files

Alpaca is a commission-free brokerage API for US stocks, ETFs, crypto and options, paired with a market data API for real-time and historical quotes and bars. A free tier and paper-trading sandbox are available, and options chains are included for equity options trading and data. Suits developers building trading apps and algorithms end to end.

Best for: Developers building trading apps with brokerage execution

• paper trading
• options chain
• websocket
• free tier
• sdk

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• Brokerages

Tradier pairs a brokerage account with a developer API for equities, options, and market data, including real-time quotes and option chains. New users get a two-month free trial of paid data plans, and a sandbox account is available for testing without funding. Suits developers building options-focused trading tools tied to real order execution.

Best for: Developers who want brokerage execution alongside options data

• options chain
• sandbox
• streaming
• brokerage integration

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• Brokerages

Interactive Brokers offers the TWS API and a newer Client Portal Web API for placing orders and pulling quotes, positions, and options chains across global stocks, options, futures, and forex from a funded brokerage account. There is no separate subscription fee for the API itself, though market data add-ons and commissions follow IBKR's usual brokerage pricing. Suits developers automating their own IBKR account.

Best for: Developers automating trading on their own IBKR account

• options chain
• oauth2
• sdk
• brokerage account required

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• Brokerages

Finnhub provides real-time and historical stock, forex and crypto data along with company fundamentals, earnings, analyst estimates and alternative data through a REST and WebSocket API. A free tier supports low-volume prototyping, with paid plans unlocking real-time US data and expanded history. Options coverage is limited compared to dedicated options providers. Suits developers prototyping fundamentals-driven tools.

Best for: Developers prototyping fundamentals and news-driven tools

• fundamentals
• websocket
• free tier
• earnings calendar
• news

Alpha Vantage offers real-time and historical data for stocks, ETFs, forex, crypto, commodities and over 50 technical indicators, plus a US options endpoint, through a simple REST API. A free API key is available with daily rate limits, and paid premium plans raise those limits and add real-time data. Suits hobbyist and early-stage developers who need broad, low-cost coverage.

Best for: Hobbyists and early-stage developers wanting broad free coverage

• technical indicators
• free tier
• historical data
• options chain

The Schwab Trader API gives developers with a Schwab brokerage account OAuth2 access to account data, streaming and historical quotes, options chains, and order placement across stocks and options, plus a sandbox with synthetic data for testing. There is no separate API subscription fee. Suits developers building tools on top of their own Schwab account, successor to the retired TD Ameritrade API.

Best for: Developers automating trading on their own Schwab account

• options chain
• oauth2
• sandbox
• streaming

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• Brokerages

tastytrade's Open API lets developers with a tastytrade account place and manage equity, options, futures and crypto orders, and stream real-time quotes and option chains with Greeks and IV rank via a WebSocket feed. Access is free with a funded account, and an open-source MCP server is available for AI agents. Suits options-focused developers building on top of a tastytrade account.

Best for: Options-focused developers building on a tastytrade account

• options chain
• greeks
• websocket
• oauth2
• mcp server

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• Brokerages

Twelve Data provides unified REST and WebSocket access to stocks, forex, crypto, ETFs and fundamentals across roughly 100,000 symbols and 250+ exchanges. A free tier offers 800 requests per day and limited WebSocket trial credits, with paid plans adding real-time data and higher limits. Options data is not part of its coverage. Suits developers who want one API for many asset classes.

Best for: Developers wanting one API across many asset classes

• websocket
• free tier
• fundamentals
• multi-asset

Databento is a usage-based market data platform delivering live and historical tick data for US equities, all major options exchanges, and futures, plus reference data, via streaming API and flat files. New accounts get $125 in free credits to test before paying, with historical data billed from roughly $0.50 per gigabyte. Suits quant researchers who need raw, exchange-grade data.

Best for: Quant researchers who need raw exchange-grade tick data

• options chain
• historical data
• flat files
• tick data
• free credits

Tiingo delivers stock prices, fundamentals, news and crypto data through a REST API, with API access included in a personal Tiingo.com subscription that has a free tier for individual, non-commercial use. It does not offer a dedicated options data product. Suits individual developers and researchers who want clean historical price and fundamentals data at low cost.

Best for: Individual developers wanting clean historical price data cheaply

• fundamentals
• free tier
• historical data
• news

EODHD covers end-of-day and historical data for around 150,000 tickers on 60+ exchanges, along with fundamentals, technical indicators, news, and a dedicated end-of-day options data API for US stocks. A free plan allows 20 API calls a day with no card required, and paid personal plans start under $20 a month. Suits budget-conscious developers who want broad global coverage.

Best for: Budget-conscious developers wanting broad global coverage

• options chain
• fundamentals
• free tier
• technical indicators
• global exchanges

Financial Modeling Prep offers a REST API for stock prices, financial statements, ratios, earnings calendars, and other fundamentals, with an options endpoint among its premium offerings. The free Basic plan allows 250 calls a day on end-of-day data, while paid Starter and higher plans add real-time data, more history, and global markets. Suits developers who lean heavily on fundamentals and financial statements.

Best for: Developers who need deep fundamentals and financial statement data

• fundamentals
• free tier
• financial statements
• earnings calendar

Intrinio provides normalized stock, options, fundamentals, ETF and analyst-estimate data via API and SDKs, including real-time options fair-value pricing and historical options chains. There is no permanent free tier, but a free trial is available; individual plans start around $150 a month. Suits developers who need institutional-grade, pre-cleaned datasets and are willing to pay for them.

Best for: Developers needing institutional-grade, pre-cleaned datasets

• options chain
• fundamentals
• free trial
• sdk

Nasdaq Data Link (formerly Quandl) is a marketplace of financial, economic and alternative datasets accessed through a single REST API, spanning futures, macro indicators, and various stock-related datasets contributed by third parties. Many datasets are free while others require a paid subscription, and options-specific coverage depends on the individual dataset chosen. Suits developers wanting macro and alternative data alongside price series.

Best for: Developers wanting macro and alternative datasets alongside prices

• alternative data
• free datasets
• macro data
• historical data

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• Insider & Sentiment

Unusual Whales exposes its options flow, dark pool, Greek exposure, and congressional-trading data through over 100 REST, WebSocket, Kafka and MCP endpoints for developers building custom bots and dashboards. Sign-up is free to browse plans, with a 7-day free trial before billing starts on paid API subscriptions; there is no permanent free tier. Suits developers building options-flow and unusual-activity tools.

Best for: Developers building options-flow and unusual-activity tools

• options flow
• dark pool
• websocket
• mcp server
• congressional trades

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• Option Flow

ORATS provides institutional-grade options data and tools, including a backtester with over 300 million pre-computed backtests across 5,000-plus symbols back to 2007, a stock and option scanner using hundreds of proprietary indicators, and a data API. It is aimed at systematic and semi-professional traders building or testing options strategies.

Best for: Systematic traders backtesting options strategies at scale

• backtester
• scanner
• historical iv data
• api

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• Options Analytics
• Backtesting & Algo

ThetaData delivers options, stock, index and interest-rate data with first-, second- and third-order Greeks, trade and quote data, and implied volatility, via REST/WebSocket APIs or a local terminal application. A free tier is available with no credit card required, alongside paid plans for higher-volume individual and commercial use. Suits developers who want professional-grade options data at a lower entry price than the largest vendors.

Best for: Developers wanting professional options data at a lower entry price

• options chain
• greeks
• free tier
• websocket
• historical data

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• Options Analytics

Marketstack is a REST API for real-time, intraday and end-of-day stock prices across 30,000+ tickers and 70+ exchanges, plus SEC EDGAR filings data. A free plan gives 100 requests a month with no card required, and paid plans for real-time US data start under $10 a month. It does not cover options. Suits developers who want a simple, affordable global stock price API.

Best for: Developers wanting a simple, affordable global stock price API

• free tier
• historical data
• sec filings
• global exchanges

StockData.org offers a free REST API for US and global stock prices, intraday and end-of-day history, and market news across roughly 150,000 tickers, with 100 requests a day available at no cost and no card required. Paid plans raise those limits. It does not cover options data. Suits hobbyist developers and students building simple market-data prototypes.

Best for: Hobbyists and students building simple prototypes

• free tier
• historical data
• news
• no card required

Benzinga APIs deliver licensed financial news, an economic calendar, and market data feeds used by brokerages and fintech platforms to power in-app news and events. Pricing is not published and is generally quoted per client rather than offered as a self-serve free tier. Options-specific data is not the core focus; the strength is news and calendar content. Suits developers embedding news and events rather than raw price data.

Best for: Developers embedding financial news and calendar events

• news
• economic calendar
• licensed content

• Also in
• News

QuoteMedia offers over 200 request and streaming APIs covering stocks, funds, futures and options across 110+ global exchanges, plus 100+ news providers and pre-built financial widgets. Pricing and trial availability are not published and require contacting their sales team. Suits established fintech and brokerage teams that need broad, licensed market data with vendor support rather than self-serve sign-up.

Best for: Fintech and brokerage teams needing licensed data with vendor support

• streaming
• widgets
• news
• global exchanges

Barchart OnDemand is a commercial market data API covering stocks, options, futures and forex with quotes, historical data, technical indicators and options chains, aimed at brokerages and trading-platform builders. Pricing is quote-based rather than self-serve, and there is no published free tier. Suits established fintech teams needing a long-standing, exchange-licensed data vendor rather than solo developers on a budget.

Best for: Fintech teams needing an established, exchange-licensed data vendor

• options chain
• technical indicators
• historical data
• licensed data

QUODD, the merged Xignite and QUODD business, provides APIs and streaming feeds for pricing, reference data, fundamentals and mutual fund data across 150+ exchanges, aimed at fintech and brokerage developer teams. Published coverage of options and any free tier are unclear; onboarding goes through a sales contact rather than self-serve sign-up. Suits fintech startups needing configurable, vendor-supported data pipelines.

Best for: Fintech startups needing configurable, vendor-supported data pipelines

• reference data
• fundamentals
• streaming
• developer portal

The SEC's own EDGAR API is a completely free, no-key-required REST service for company filing histories and structured XBRL financial data pulled straight from 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K and other filings. It does not cover market prices or options, only regulatory and financial-statement data. Suits developers building fundamentals or compliance tools who want primary-source filing data at zero cost.

Best for: Developers who want primary-source SEC filing data for free

• sec filings
• free tier
• fundamentals
• no api key

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• Research

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis's FRED API gives free, keyed access to hundreds of thousands of US and global economic time series, such as interest rates, inflation, employment and GDP data, used by traders to build macro context around stock and options positions. It does not provide stock prices or options data itself. Suits developers adding macroeconomic indicators to trading or research tools.

Best for: Developers adding macroeconomic context to trading tools

• economic data
• free tier
• historical data
• macro indicators

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• Research

Terminal-style research platform giving retail investors deep historical financial data, a screener covering thousands of filters across global securities, and charts that overlay fundamentals directly on price. Positioned as an affordable alternative to institutional terminals for building custom dashboards. Free tier is usable; paid plans add more data and exports.

Best for: Investors who want a terminal-style dashboard without terminal pricing

• custom dashboards
• fundamentals overlay
• global screener
• financial data history

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• Research
• Screeners & Scanners

Interactive Brokers is a global brokerage known for low margin rates, broad market access across stocks, options, futures, and forex, and its Trader Workstation platform aimed at sophisticated traders. It offers a simplified IBKR Lite tier with free stock trades alongside a tiered IBKR Pro pricing structure. Suits international and professional-level traders.

Best for: Global and professional traders needing broad market access

• trader workstation
• global markets
• low margin rates
• api access

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• Brokerages

Barchart offers free and subscription stock, ETF, and options screeners alongside its widely cited market data, charts, and options tools. Filters cover price, technicals, fundamentals, and options metrics like implied volatility and unusual activity, with fuller result sets and exports on paid plans. It suits traders who already use Barchart for quotes and want screening in the same place.

Best for: Traders who want screening bundled with market data

• custom filters
• options screener
• watchlists
• price alerts
• data export

• Also in
• Screeners & Scanners
• Options Analytics

iVolatility supplies real-time and historical options and volatility data through APIs and its browser-based IVolLive terminal, which includes strategy analysis, backtesting, scanning and an implied-volatility calculator. Built on more than 20 years of options data, it is used both by other retail platforms as a data source and by traders directly.

Best for: Traders and developers wanting institutional-grade historical IV data

• iv data
• backtester
• scanner
• api

• Also in
• Options Analytics

A desktop charting and market data platform built on ICE Data Services infrastructure, covering stocks, options, futures, and forex with real-time streaming data, advanced technical studies, and backtesting on higher tiers. It is one of the pricier standalone charting tools, aimed at active and professional traders who need reliable, low-latency data alongside their charts.

Best for: Active traders who want professional-grade real-time data with their charts

• real-time data
• custom indicators
• market depth
• backtesting
• alerts

• Also in
• Charting

Global markets news and data site covering stocks, forex, commodities and crypto, with an economic calendar and real-time quotes alongside its headlines. Popular with forex and futures traders for its calendar and broad international coverage. A free tier covers news, with InvestingPro adding deeper analysis.

Best for: Forex and futures traders who want news tied to an economic calendar

• economic calendar
• breaking news
• real-time quotes
• global coverage

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• News
• Calendars & Macro

A short-interest analytics platform that estimates short interest and cost-to-borrow in near real time by pulling from securities lending data, instead of waiting on the biweekly exchange-reported figures. It also covers options flow, technical signals, and a proprietary stock score, with access through the web, API, and Excel add-in. Real-time data requires a paid plan.

Best for: Active traders who need short interest that isn't two weeks stale

• real-time short interest
• cost to borrow
• squeeze signals
• options flow
• api access

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• Insider & Sentiment
• Options Analytics

A comprehensive economic calendar spanning most countries and indicators, backed by Trading Economics' own historical database of macro time series that a release links back to. Free browsing covers the calendar itself, while an API and deeper historical downloads sit behind a paid subscription aimed at more data-intensive users.

Best for: Macro traders who want data history behind each release

• economic calendar
• historical data
• global coverage
• api access

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• Calendars & Macro
• Research

A free market-data site combining dark pool and off-exchange volume, short interest and short volume, failures-to-deliver, borrow fees, and Reddit mention and sentiment tracking across hundreds of subreddits. Per-ticker pages let traders see exchange versus dark pool activity alongside social buzz in one view. A premium tier adds deeper historical data and extra tools.

Best for: Traders who want dark pool, short volume and social sentiment together

• dark pool data
• short volume
• reddit sentiment
• failures to deliver
• borrow fees

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• Insider & Sentiment
• Charting

The St. Louis Fed's own release calendar shows the exact publication date and time for every data series in the FRED database, from CPI to regional employment figures, in US Central Time. It is a primary-source reference rather than a trading tool, valued for accuracy over convenience or commentary.

Best for: Traders who want the primary source for data releases

• release calendar
• primary source data
• api access
• historical series

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• Calendars & Macro
• Research

Barchart's unusual options activity screen flags contracts trading at high volume relative to open interest, alongside preset screens for high implied volatility and large open-interest changes. It sits inside the broader Barchart data platform, with deeper flow history and extended analytics gated behind a Barchart Premier subscription.

Best for: Traders who already use Barchart for quotes and charts

• unusual options activity
• implied volatility screen
• open interest
• alerts

• Also in
• Option Flow
• Options Analytics

A free real-time dashboard from CME Group that converts 30-Day Fed Funds futures pricing into implied probabilities for the Fed's rate decision at each upcoming FOMC meeting, including a historical view of how those odds have shifted. It is widely cited by financial media and used to gauge market-implied rate expectations.

Best for: Gauging market-implied odds of Fed rate moves

• rate probability dashboard
• fed funds futures
• historical odds
• fomc meeting view

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• Calendars & Macro

FlashAlpha is a developer-oriented API delivering per-strike gamma, delta, vanna and charm exposure, implied volatility surfaces and dealer positioning for over 6,000 US equities, ETFs and CME futures, with historical replay back to 2017. It ships SDKs for Python, JavaScript, C#, Go and Java, plus a free tier for light use.

Best for: Developers building their own dealer-positioning dashboards or bots

• gamma exposure
• dealer positioning
• volatility surface
• api
• historical replay

• Also in
• Option Flow

Financial data platform with up to 40 years of statements, pre-calculated ratios like ROIC and ROE, earnings transcripts and a value-oriented stock screener, delivered through a web app, spreadsheet add-in and API. Positioned as a lower-cost alternative to legacy financial data APIs. Free tier available with rate limits.

Best for: Value investors and developers wanting cheap access to fundamental ratios

• roic and roe ratios
• earnings transcripts
• value screener
• spreadsheet add-in

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• Research
• Screeners & Scanners

Google Sheets and Excel add-on that pulls stock, crypto, forex and options data directly into a spreadsheet formula, covering decades of historical financials and live prices across 50-plus exchanges. Built for investors who want to build their own custom models without leaving a spreadsheet. Paid plans billed annually, no free tier.

Best for: Investors who build custom valuation models in a spreadsheet

• spreadsheet formulas
• historical financials
• brokerage integration
• custom models

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• Research

Barchart's free presentation of the CFTC's weekly Commitments of Traders reports, showing net futures positioning by producers, swap dealers, managed money, and other reportable categories. It covers currencies, energies, financials, grains, indices, metals, and softs, with a disaggregated view for deeper category breakdowns. Data is released weekly, following the CFTC's own Friday schedule.

Best for: Futures and forex traders tracking large speculator positioning

• commitments of traders
• futures positioning
• managed money data
• weekly cftc data

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• Insider & Sentiment

FINRA's own free short interest data, collected from broker-dealers under Rule 4560 and published twice monthly for all exchange-listed and OTC equities. It offers an interactive grid, five years of historical downloads, and an API, making it the primary regulatory source that most other short-interest sites repackage. It is not real time, unlike vendor estimates.

Best for: Traders who want the authoritative, regulator-reported short interest figures

• official short interest
• biweekly data
• historical download
• api access

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• Insider & Sentiment

Exchange-operated news and data portal publishing market news, earnings coverage and company profiles alongside official Nasdaq market data. A common reference point for quotes and corporate filings because the coverage ties directly back to the exchange itself. Free to read, with no subscription required for core news.

Best for: Traders wanting exchange-sourced news and quotes in one free place

• exchange-sourced data
• earnings news
• company profiles
• market news

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• News

Commodities-focused news desk best known for precious metals coverage, publishing spot prices, market commentary and video interviews alongside broader macro and mining-sector news. A long-standing free reference for futures and commodity traders who need metals-specific headlines that generalist outlets cover thinly.

Best for: Futures traders who follow precious metals and commodities

• precious metals coverage
• spot prices
• commodity news
• market commentary

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• News