# Bitfinex API vs Bybit (slim)

> Bitfinex scores 58.4 (C) to Bybit's 57.3 (C) for exchange market data. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bitfinex-vs-bybit.md (~4,300 tokens) · this version ~2,030 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bitfinex-vs-bybit.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bitfinex-vs-bybit
- 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)

Bitfinex API scores 58.4 (C) on agent readiness against Bybit's 57.3 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Bybit leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and maintenance & community. Both do exchange market data.

- Bitfinex API: C 58.4, rank #675 of 1349 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bitfinex.min.md
- Bybit: C 57.3, rank #712 of 1349 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bybit.min.md
- Bitfinex API, good 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 45.
- Bybit, good for An agent trading spot, perpetuals, futures and options in a person's Bybit account outside the excluded jurisdictions, with a demo environment to rehearse on. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 73 against 48; Agent ergonomics, 66 against 61; Maintenance & community, 66 against 41. Also Runs on your own machine.

| Category | Bitfinex API | Bybit |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 85 | 45 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 48 | 73 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 61 | 66 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 62 | 60 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 41 | 66 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 49 | 51 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Bitfinex API | Bybit |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | iFinex Inc. | Bybit |
| Transports |  | stdio |
| 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 | none |
| Tools exposed | none | 398 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-07-18 | 2026-10-30 |
| Popularity | 480 stars | 43 stars |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, Bitfinex API +40: 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.); Bybit 45 (Graded with the hosted lines on the V5 API at api.bybit.com. No status page found (status.bybit.com does not resolve, the docs link none), so 0 for the page and 5 for no readable history. Rate limits are published per endpoint and per UID with numbers, plus a 600 per 5 second IP limit (15). Every response carries X-Bapi-Limit, X-Bapi-Limit-Status and X-Bapi-Limit-Reset-Timestamp, retCode 10006 and HTTP 403 are documented with a wait rule, and orders take a unique orderLinkId that amend and cancel accept (15). No SLA (0). V5 is the current production API, not a beta (10). 45.)
- Schema & documentation, Bybit +25: Bitfinex API 48 (No OpenAPI or AsyncAPI file was found on docs.bitfinex.com, in llms.txt or in the client repositories (0). llms.txt and a .md twin of every docs page (10). Each reference page states the endpoint's purpose and fields, and the introduction says when to use api-pub against api, but nothing says when not to use an endpoint (14 of 20). Responses are positional arrays described in field tables, inputs are typed in prose with some enumerations (wallet names, order types) and required fields marked; the withdrawal CODE field is work in progress (7 of 15). Signed-request recipes in five languages, but authenticated errors are documented as 400 with an empty object and there is no error reference (9 of 15). Version v2 in the path and a dated changelog, whose last entry is October 2024 and whose v1 deprecation has no date (8 of 15). 0 + 10 + 14 + 7 + 9 + 8 = 48.); Bybit 73 (No OpenAPI or other machine-readable contract for the REST API; the MCP server's 398 tools have zod schemas turned into JSON Schema, so the contract exists for the MCP surface only (12 of 25). No llms.txt; the docs are a public Docusaurus repository (bybit-exchange/docs) whose MDX source an agent can read (5 of 10). The MCP tool descriptions state purpose, rules and an agent hint per tool, and the API reference gives one page per endpoint (15 of 20). Parameters are typed with enums such as category and orderType and required flags (12 of 15). Request and response examples on each endpoint page and an error code page of about 750 codes with text (14 of 15). A dated changelog with 24 entries in the last 90 days, versioned V3 to V5 (15). 73.)
- Maintenance & community, Bybit +25: 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.); Bybit 66 (Read as a hosted service with an open-source MCP server. The MCP package shipped 2.1.26 on 30 October 2026 and the V5 changelog's latest entry is 29 October (30). 31 npm versions since 16 April 2026, 11 of them in the last 90 days, and 24 changelog entries in the same window (20). The trading-mcp repository has 4 open issues and 18 forks; whether issues get answers was not checked, and the API has no public forum we could read (10 of 25). Not in the official MCP registry (0). The package has four dependencies, no install scripts, a publish workflow and no test workflow (6 of 10). 66.)
- Agent ergonomics, Bybit +5: Bitfinex API 61 (Graded on the REST API. Limits on trades, candles and book depth, and `pub:list` config endpoints keep responses small, but positional arrays make every field a lookup (14 of 25). `start`, `end`, `limit` and `sort` on history endpoints and per-symbol variants (16 of 20). `ERR_RATE_LIMIT` is actionable; authenticated 400s return `{}` and withdrawal status strings may change, so an agent cannot branch on causes (8 of 20). A client id on orders, order multi-op and cancel-multiple, but no idempotency key and no retry contract (8 of 20). Few required parameters and official clients in Node, Python, Go and Ruby (15). 14 + 16 + 8 + 8 + 15 = 61.); Bybit 66 (Read for the API with the MCP server beside it. The MCP server has 398 tools in one list with no toolset, module or read-only switch (5 of 25, nothing added back). V5 reads take limit and cursor and category filters (15 of 20). retCode and retMsg on every response with a code list an agent can branch on, though create-order answers before the order is final and the docs say to confirm over WebSocket (14 of 20). orderLinkId makes order retries safe and every MCP tool carries readOnlyHint and destructiveHint (17 of 20). Five required fields on an order, official SDKs in Python, Go, Java and .NET (15). 66.)