Head to head · Market prices · October 2026 research run
Alpha Vantage vs Finnhub
Finnhub scores 45.1 (E) on agent readiness against Alpha Vantage's 41.5 (E), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Alpha Vantage leads on transparency & trust. Both do market prices.
Best financial market data APIs for AI agents · All 55 markets comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for A personal research or analysis agent that wants many asset classes, fundamentals, indicators and news sentiment from one key at a flat price.
Ahead on
- Transparency & trust, 50 against 27
Also in its favour
- Runs on your own machine
Watch for
The REST key is documented only as apikey= in the query string, with no scopes and no self-service rotation found
Finnhub E
Best for Agents that need one key across quotes, fundamentals, estimates, filings and transcripts with official libraries, and a free key for prototypes.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 48 against 30
- Schema & documentation, 58 against 46
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
The Swagger document declares the key only as a token query parameter, and the examples carry it in the URL
Why the edge
Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.
Transparency & trust Alpha Vantage +23
Alpha Vantage 50
A closed service under short terms that are clear on scope, personal and non-commercial by default, with the MCP server under MIT (15 of 30). The privacy policy of 25 August 2025 describes the website, keeps personal data 'only for as long as is necessary' with no periods, and no DPA was found. It does not describe the request analytics visible in the MCP server source (8 of 30). No deprecation policy. The MCP README marks the key-in-URL connection deprecated with no date, and the changelog flags breaking changes (3 of 20). Google Analytics, Mixpanel, GitHub, GitLab, PayPal or Braintree and Stripe are named, and data is processed in the United States (10 of 20). Total 36.
Finnhub 27
A closed service whose terms exist at a page that robots.txt disallows, so they were not read; the pricing page says every self-serve plan is personal use, and no legal entity or governing law was found (8 of 30). No privacy policy was found, /privacy redirecting to the home page (0 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices found (0 of 20). Stripe and Braintree scripts load on the site, but no processor list or data location is disclosed (0 of 20). 8 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 8.
Reliability Finnhub +18
Alpha Vantage 30
Graded as a hosted service. No status page was found. The site links none and status.alphavantage.co has no valid certificate (0). With no page there is no incident history to read (5). Limits are published with numbers, 25 requests a day on a free key and 75 to 1,200 a minute on premium plans (15). No 429, Retry-After or backoff guidance was found, and in our test calls a missing key and an unknown function both returned HTTP 200 with a text field (0). No SLA was found, and the terms supply the service as is (0). The REST API is generally available (10). Total 30.
Finnhub 48
Read with the hosted lines. No status page was found on the site, in the docs document or on the MCP page (0), so no incident history could be read (5). Limits are published with numbers, 60 calls a minute on the free key, 150 to 900 a minute by plan, and 30 calls a second on top of every plan (15). The docs say the limit answers 429 and the MCP page says to wait a minute, with no Retry-After or backoff guidance (8 of 15). The home page says 99.99 per cent uptime with an SLA available for enterprise clients (10). The API is generally available (10). 0 + 5 + 15 + 8 + 10 + 10 = 48.
Schema & documentation Finnhub +12
Alpha Vantage 46
The surface graded is the REST API, with the official MCP server noted. No OpenAPI document was found for the API. The MCP server's tools carry typed inputs generated from Python signatures (10 of 25). /llms.txt returns 404, and the only Markdown is the MCP README (3 of 10). Each function has a purpose statement, a parameter list and a premium marker, with little on when not to use it (13 of 20). Required and optional parameters are marked and allowed values listed in prose, while MCP inputs such as interval are plain strings with no enums (8 of 15). Every function has demo URLs and code in four languages, but no error responses are documented (8 of 15). The API has no version and no changelog. The MCP repository's changelog stops at 0.3.2 on 27 February 2026 with later changes under Unreleased (4 of 15). Total 46.
Finnhub 58
A public Swagger 2.0 document covers 116 paths with a description on every operation, declaring the key as a query parameter and a 200 response only; the MCP tools were not read (20 of 25). /llms.txt returns the site's HTML shell and no Markdown docs exist (0 of 10). Each operation states its purpose, a premium marker and, on quote, advice against polling, with little on when not to use it (14 of 20). Required flags and types are set on 248 parameters, but allowed values such as news categories sit in description text and no enum is declared (8 of 15). Every operation has example URLs and sample code in five languages, while the only documented error is the 429 (9 of 15). The path carries v1 and no changelog or dated change notes were found (7 of 15). 20 + 0 + 14 + 8 + 9 + 7 = 58.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Alpha Vantage | Finnhub | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 30 | 48 | Finnhub +18 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 46 | 58 | Finnhub +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 54 | 56 | Finnhub +2 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 32 | 32 | even |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 30 | 30 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 63 | 60 | Alpha Vantage +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 50 | 27 | Alpha Vantage +23 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | E 41.5/100 | E 45.1/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Alpha Vantage | Finnhub |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Alpha Vantage Inc. | Finnhub |
| Hosted endpoint | https://www.alphavantage.co/query | https://finnhub.io/api/v1 |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, websocket |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Alpha Vantage's Terms of Service. The MCP server, CLI and shared client in alphavantage/alpha_vantage_mcp are MIT | none |
| Tools exposed | none | 70 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| MCP registry | io.github.alphavantage/alpha_vantage_mcp | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-03 | 2026-11-02 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 217 stars, 172 PyPI/wk | 1.1k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | none |
How the scores have moved
Finnhub
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
Alpha Vantage
One GET endpoint covers about 130 documented functions, with a free key at 25 requests a day and an official MCP server whose tools are all marked read-only. The REST key travels only in the query string, errors come back as HTTP 200 with a text message, and no status page, SLA or OpenAPI document was found.
Finnhub
A public Swagger document covers 116 endpoints, six official client libraries exist, and a free key gives 60 calls a minute with no card. The key is documented in the query string, no status page, changelog, error reference or privacy policy was found, and robots.txt kept the terms from our reader.
Before you call either
Alpha Vantage
- Check every 200 response for
Error Message,InformationorNotekeys before parsing data. The API does not signal failures or limits by status code - Budget 25 requests a day on a free key. Real-time, 15-minute delayed and intraday US data, index data and several indicators need a premium plan
- Keep
outputsize=compactunless full history is needed, and ask fordatatype=csvon long series to cut tokens - Use the hosted MCP server with OAuth at
https://mcp.alphavantage.co/mcp. The?apikey=MCP URL is marked deprecated - Confirm the owner's use is personal and non-commercial, or that a commercial agreement exists, before acting for a business
Finnhub
- Send the key as the
X-Finnhub-Tokenheader, not astoken=in the URL, and keep under 30 calls a second on top of the plan's per-minute limit - Check the
premiummarker before calling; a free key reaches 29 operations and the rest answer with an error - Poll /quote sparingly; the docs say constant polling is not recommended and point to the websocket for real-time updates
- Expect 401
{"error":"Please use an API key."}without a key and 429 over the limit; wait a minute before retrying, as the MCP page advises - Self-serve plans are personal use; anything commercial needs the enterprise contact route
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Alpha Vantage or Finnhub?
Finnhub scores 45.1 (E) on agent readiness against Alpha Vantage's 41.5 (E), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Alpha Vantage leads on transparency & trust.
Do Alpha Vantage and Finnhub need an API key?
Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call Alpha Vantage and Finnhub without installing anything?
Yes. Alpha Vantage has a hosted endpoint at https://www.alphavantage.co/query and Finnhub at https://finnhub.io/api/v1.
Other comparisons with Alpha Vantage or Finnhub
- Alpha Vantage vs Benzinga
- Alpha Vantage vs Databento
- Alpha Vantage vs EODHD
- Alpha Vantage vs Financial Datasets
- Alpha Vantage vs Financial Modeling Prep
- Alpha Vantage vs Intrinio
- Alpha Vantage vs Massive (formerly Polygon.io)
- Alpha Vantage vs Tiingo
- Alpha Vantage vs Twelve Data
- Databento vs Finnhub
- Finnhub vs Intrinio
- Finnhub vs Massive (formerly Polygon.io)
- Finnhub vs Tiingo
- Finnhub vs Twelve Data
- Financial Datasets vs Finnhub
- Financial Modeling Prep vs Finnhub
- EODHD vs Finnhub
- Benzinga vs Finnhub
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/alpha-vantage-vs-finnhub.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/alpha-vantage.json·/api/v1/tools/finnhub.json - From a terminal
anchor compare alpha-vantage finnhub(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "alpha-vantage", "b": "finnhub"}at/mcp, no key