# Alpha Vantage vs Finnhub (slim)

> Finnhub scores 45.1 (E) to Alpha Vantage's 41.5 (E) for market prices. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alpha-vantage-vs-finnhub.md (~3,450 tokens) · this version ~1,680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alpha-vantage-vs-finnhub.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/alpha-vantage-vs-finnhub
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-04
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

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.

- Alpha Vantage: E 41.5, rank #1190 of 1349 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/alpha-vantage.min.md
- Finnhub: E 45.1, rank #1127 of 1349 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/finnhub.min.md
- Alpha Vantage, good 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 Runs on your own machine.
- Finnhub, good 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 Free to start without a card.

| Category | Alpha Vantage | Finnhub |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 30 | 48 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 46 | 58 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 54 | 56 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 32 | 32 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 30 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 63 | 60 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 50 | 27 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Alpha Vantage | Finnhub |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| MCP registry | `io.github.alphavantage/alpha_vantage_mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-03 | 2026-11-02 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Popularity | 217 stars, 172 PyPI/wk | 1.1k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- 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.)