Head to head · Market prices · October 2026 research run
Alpha Vantage vs Tiingo
Tiingo scores 46.2 (D) on agent readiness against Alpha Vantage's 41.5 (E), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Alpha Vantage leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community. 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
- Schema & documentation, 46 against 39
- Maintenance & community, 63 against 50
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
Tiingo D
Best for Agents that need clean US end-of-day composites with dividend and split adjustments, fund fees and news on a cheap plan, and anyone who values a long changelog.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 60 against 30
- Transparency & trust, 57 against 50
Watch for
The connecting guide documents the token as ?token= in the URL alongside the header
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.
Reliability Tiingo +30
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.
Tiingo 60
Read with the hosted lines. A public status page on Instatus at status.tiingo.com lists 13 components with a notice history (20). The history in the 90 days to 3 November 2026 shows a 9 hour 59 minute outage of the Blue Ocean ATS endpoints on 21 October, a WebSocket issue on 21 September and two maintenance windows, with nothing recorded before 21 September; a long outage of one niche feed rather than the core price API (15). Limits are published with numbers, 50 and 10,000 requests an hour, 1,000 and 100,000 a day and 1 GB and 40 GB a month (15). No 429, Retry-After or backoff guidance was found (0). No SLA found (0). The end-of-day, news, crypto and forex APIs are generally available, while Equity Realtime and BOATS are in beta (10). 20 + 15 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 60.
Maintenance & community Alpha Vantage +13
Alpha Vantage 63
The MCP server repository, which a workflow deploys to the hosted server, had its last commit on 3 October 2026, and the site footer says it was updated in October 2026 (30). No tags, and the newest PyPI release is 17 March 2026, so there are no dated releases in the last 90 days, though the repository shows over 30 commits since 21 July (8 of 20). Pull requests 14 and 18 were merged within a day and issue 16 closed in a day, while issue 17, a reported startup crash, has been open since 4 September. Support is by email (10 of 25). The server sits in the official MCP registry under the vendor's GitHub namespace, with no official SDKs (12 of 15). The published package leaves its mcp dependency unpinned, and the workflows deploy and publish without a visible test run (3 of 10). Total 63.
Tiingo 50
Read as a closed service. The changelog's newest entry is 9 October 2026 (30). Entries dated 9 October and 8 September 2026 fall in the last 90 days, with 21 July just outside, and the status page adds a maintenance window on 28 September (12 of 20). A dated changelog, a support address and a blog, with the developer programme promising priority email support (8 of 15). No official SDK (0 of 15). No package to assess (0 of 10). 30 + 12 + 8 + 0 + 0 = 50.
Schema & documentation Alpha Vantage +7
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.
Tiingo 39
No OpenAPI document or MCP server was found (0 of 25). llms.txt and llms-full.txt are served, with product routing and licence notes (10). Each documentation page states the endpoint's purpose and timing, such as prices after 5.30 pm ET with corrections to 8 pm, with little on when not to use it (12 of 20). Parameters and response fields are tabled with names and meanings, but types, defaults and allowed values are partly in prose (8 of 15). Examples in Python, Node and PHP on every page; no error responses documented (7 of 15). A changelog dated by entry since 2017 and a one-year support commitment after breaking changes, with no version in the path (12 of 15). 0 + 10 + 12 + 8 + 7 + 12 = 39.
Transparency & trust Tiingo +7
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.
Tiingo 57
A closed service whose terms sit on app.tiingo.com, which answered 403 to every request, so they were not read; the pricing and documentation pages define internal, commercial and redistribution licences (8 of 30). The privacy policy is on the same host and was not read (0 of 30). The developer programme commits to a year of continued support after a breaking change, with changes posted in the changelog and emailed to registered developers, and the changelog's 9 October 2026 entry describes a changed default for prevClose (16 of 20). Equinix hosting is named on the about page, with no processor list or data location (4 of 20). 8 + 0 + 16 + 4 = 28.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Alpha Vantage | Tiingo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 30 | 60 | Tiingo +30 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 46 | 39 | Alpha Vantage +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 54 | 56 | Tiingo +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 | 50 | Alpha Vantage +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 50 | 57 | Tiingo +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | E 41.5/100 | D 46.2/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Alpha Vantage | Tiingo |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Alpha Vantage Inc. | Tiingo Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | https://www.alphavantage.co/query | https://api.tiingo.com |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, websocket |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API 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 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | io.github.alphavantage/alpha_vantage_mcp | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-03 | 2026-10-09 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-02-18 |
| 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 | none |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | none |
How the scores have moved
Tiingo
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.
Tiingo
A dated changelog since 2017, a one-year support commitment after breaking changes, an Instatus status page and a free token at 1,000 requests a day. The token is documented in the URL, no OpenAPI document, error reference, SDK or MCP server exists, and the terms and privacy policy sit on a host that refused 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
Tiingo
- Send the token as
Authorization: Token <token>, not as?token=in the URL - Ask for
format=csvon large price pulls; the docs say CSV is 4 to 5 times faster than JSON, and bandwidth counts against the monthly cap - Count requests an hour and a day, not per second; 50 an hour on Starter, 10,000 on Power, reset on the hour and at midnight ET
- Expect 403
{"detail":"Please supply a token"}without a token; other error shapes are undocumented, so log the body - Use dashes in share classes (BRK-A), and fetch supported_tickers.zip rather than guessing symbols
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Alpha Vantage or Tiingo?
Tiingo scores 46.2 (D) on agent readiness against Alpha Vantage's 41.5 (E), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Alpha Vantage leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community.
Do Alpha Vantage and Tiingo need an API key?
Alpha Vantage takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Tiingo needs an API key.
Can an agent call Alpha Vantage and Tiingo without installing anything?
Yes. Alpha Vantage has a hosted endpoint at https://www.alphavantage.co/query and Tiingo at https://api.tiingo.com.
Other comparisons with Alpha Vantage or Tiingo
- Alpha Vantage vs Benzinga
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- Alpha Vantage vs EODHD
- Alpha Vantage vs Financial Datasets
- Alpha Vantage vs Financial Modeling Prep
- Alpha Vantage vs Finnhub
- Alpha Vantage vs Intrinio
- Alpha Vantage vs Massive (formerly Polygon.io)
- Alpha Vantage vs Twelve Data
- Databento vs Tiingo
- Finnhub vs Tiingo
- Intrinio vs Tiingo
- Massive (formerly Polygon.io) vs Tiingo
- Tiingo vs Twelve Data
- Financial Datasets vs Tiingo
- Financial Modeling Prep vs Tiingo
- EODHD vs Tiingo
- Benzinga vs Tiingo
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/alpha-vantage-vs-tiingo.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/alpha-vantage.json·/api/v1/tools/tiingo.json - From a terminal
anchor compare alpha-vantage tiingo(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "alpha-vantage", "b": "tiingo"}at/mcp, no key