Head to head · Exchange market data · October 2026 research run
Bitfinex API vs Bitstamp API
Bitfinex API scores 58.4 (C) on agent readiness against Bitstamp API's 50.4 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do exchange market data.
Best crypto exchange APIs and MCP servers for AI agents · All 210 exchanges comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for An agent trading spot, margin or derivatives, or lending on the funding market, with scoped keys, official clients and paper trading.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 85 against 63
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 41 against 28
Watch for
No official MCP server, OpenAPI file or AsyncAPI file; the registry's Bitfinex servers are third parties proxying public market data
Best for An agent that needs a long-running regulated spot venue in the EU, UK and US with a sandbox and per-endpoint key permissions, and can do its own signing.
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
No official MCP server, SDK, llms.txt or OpenAPI file; the registry's Bitstamp servers are third parties proxying public market data
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 Bitfinex API +22
Bitfinex API 85
Read with the hosted lines on the v2 API at api.bitfinex.com. bitfinex.statuspage.io is a Statuspage site with history back to May 2021 (20). Its feed has no entry between 25 March 2026 and 3 November 2026, so the last 90 days are clean on the record; the feed logs platform-wide outages only (a 14-hour maintenance in March 2026, a 3-hour outage in August 2025), so smaller incidents may go unrecorded. Judgement call (30). Rate limits with numbers, 10 to 90 a minute per IP and the WebSocket connection limits (15). ERR_RATE_LIMIT and the 60-second block are documented, with no Retry-After; orders take a cid but no idempotency key or retry guidance was found (10 of 15). No SLA found (0). Generally available (10). 20 + 30 + 15 + 10 + 0 + 10 = 85.
Bitstamp API 63
Read with the hosted lines on the HTTP API v2 at www.bitstamp.net/api/v2/. status.bitstamp.net is a Statuspage site with component history (20). Its feed for 5 August to 3 November 2026 has 17 entries, among them withdrawals failing on 14 networks for about 3 hours on 21 August, database maintenance with login failures and intermittent trading interruptions for about 1 hour 44 minutes on 23 September, a 39-minute halt of all markets on 5 August, and delistings and single-asset suspensions. One major (10). Rate limits with numbers, 400 a second and 10,000 per 10 minutes (15). Limit errors are named (400.002, 400.067, 400.068) but there is no Retry-After or backoff guidance, duplicate client order ids are allowed, and the only retry guidance is to check the order after a 500.016 timeout (8 of 15). No SLA found (0). Generally available (10). 20 + 10 + 15 + 8 + 0 + 10 = 63.
Payments & pricing Bitfinex API +20
Bitfinex API 40
No machine payment protocol (0). The fees page is public without login (20), though it shows zero maker and taker with no tiers or date. The API is free, public endpoints need no account, and paper trading needs no money (20). A person must sign up in a browser with identity checks and mint the key (0). 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.
Bitstamp API 20
No machine payment protocol (0). The fee schedule page loaded empty, the API's fee endpoints need a key, and no rate could be read, so fees are scored as not published (0, unchecked). The API is free, public endpoints need no key and the sandbox needs no money (20). A person must sign up in a browser with identity checks and mint the key (0). 0 + 0 + 20 + 0 = 20.
Maintenance & community Bitfinex API +13
Bitfinex API 41
Read as a closed service with open clients. The last dated change we could read is bitfinex-api-node 9.1.0 on 18 July 2026, 108 days before the check; the docs changelog stops in October 2024 (10). Not three dated releases in the last 90 days (0). The bitfinexcom organisation pushes often (bfx-report on 3 November 2026) and the clients have issue trackers, but support articles answered 403 and no reply times were read (10 of 25). Official clients current in four languages, Node 9.1.0 of July 2026 and Python 4.0.0 of October 2025; not in the MCP registry (15). The Node client has a dependency history of security fixes (its last GitHub release notes name two) and no CI was read (6 of 10). 10 + 0 + 10 + 15 + 6 = 41.
Bitstamp API 28
Read as a closed service. The last dated API change is 28 August 2026, 67 days before the check (20). Only one dated entry in the last 90 days, after 1 July and 12 June (0). No public repository or issue tracker, support pages did not load and support.bitstamp.net did not resolve; a changelog exists (8 of 25). No official SDKs and no MCP registry presence of Bitstamp's own (0). No package to assess (0). 20 + 0 + 8 + 0 + 0 = 28.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Bitfinex API | Bitstamp API | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 85 | 63 | Bitfinex API +22 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 48 | 51 | Bitstamp API +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 61 | 58 | Bitfinex API +3 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 62 | 60 | Bitfinex API +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 20 | Bitfinex API +20 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 41 | 28 | Bitfinex API +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 49 | 53 | Bitstamp API +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 58.4/100 | D 50.4/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Bitfinex API | Bitstamp API |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | iFinex Inc. | Bitstamp Ltd. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted API under Bitfinex's API Terms of Service, which our reader couldn't load. The official client libraries (Node, Python, Go, Ruby) are MIT or Apache-2.0 | Proprietary hosted API under Bitstamp's terms of use, which our reader couldn't load |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-07-18 | 2026-08-28 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | couldn't be read |
| 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 | 480 stars | none |
Verdicts
Bitfinex API
Bitfinex gives an agent scoped keys with a separate withdraw permission, paper-trading sub-accounts on the production API, llms.txt and official clients in four languages. There is no official MCP server, responses are positional arrays with empty error bodies, rate limits run 10 to 90 a minute per IP, and the terms, API terms and privacy statement could not be read.
Bitstamp API
Bitstamp documents its v2 API on one static page with numeric rate limits, per-endpoint key permissions, an IP allow-list, a kill switch and a sandbox. There is no official MCP server, duplicate client order ids are allowed, and the fee schedule, terms, privacy policy and country list render by script and could not be read.
Before you call either
Bitfinex API
- Mint a key with read on the scopes the task needs and write only on
orders; never grantwithdrawto a trading key, and bind the key to known IPs - Use one key per client process, since each key keeps its own strictly increasing nonce and a reused nonce is rejected
- Rehearse on a paper-trading sub-account with the TEST symbols before touching real balances; the sub-account cannot be converted later
- Plan requests against the per-endpoint limit of 10 to 90 a minute per IP;
ERR_RATE_LIMITblocks the IP for 60 seconds with no Retry-After - Map each response by position from the docs' field tables and set a
cidon orders, because responses are arrays and a 400 carries no reason
Bitstamp API
- Mint a key with only the endpoint permissions the task needs and an IP allow-list; keep
revoke_all_api_keysin reach as a kill switch - Treat
client_order_idas a label, not a guard. On a timeout (500.016) fetch the order by client id before resending, because duplicates are accepted - Use a fresh 36-character nonce and a timestamp within 150 seconds of server time on every request, or expect API0004 and API0017
- Stay under 400 requests a second and 10,000 per 10 minutes; 400.002 and 400.067 mean back off, and open-orders answers are cached for 10 seconds
- Start on sandbox.bitstamp.net with the same paths, and read the fee schedule in a browser before quoting costs, since it is unreadable to a plain fetch
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Bitfinex API or Bitstamp API?
Bitfinex API scores 58.4 (C) on agent readiness against Bitstamp API's 50.4 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.
Do Bitfinex API and Bitstamp API need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call Bitfinex API and Bitstamp API without installing anything?
No hosted endpoint is listed for Bitfinex API. No hosted endpoint is listed for Bitstamp API.
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- Bitstamp API vs Coinbase Advanced Trade API
- Bitstamp API vs Coinbase MCP server (Coinbase for Agents)
- Bitstamp API vs Crypto.com Exchange API
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- Bitstamp API vs Hyperliquid
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/bitfinex-vs-bitstamp.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/bitfinex.json·/api/v1/tools/bitstamp.json - From a terminal
anchor compare bitfinex bitstamp(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "bitfinex", "b": "bitstamp"}at/mcp, no key