# Bitfinex API vs Coinbase Advanced Trade API (slim)

> Coinbase Advanced Trade scores 61.7 (C) to Bitfinex's 58.4 (C) for exchange market data. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bitfinex-vs-coinbase-advanced-trade.md (~5,250 tokens) · this version ~2,780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bitfinex-vs-coinbase-advanced-trade.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bitfinex-vs-coinbase-advanced-trade
- 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)

Coinbase Advanced Trade API scores 61.7 (C) on agent readiness against Bitfinex API's 58.4 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Bitfinex API leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do exchange market data.

- Bitfinex API: C 58.4, rank #675 of 1349 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bitfinex.min.md
- Coinbase Advanced Trade API: C 61.7, rank #537 of 1349 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/coinbase-advanced-trade.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 58; Payments & pricing, 40 against 20.
- Coinbase Advanced Trade API, good for An agent trading a person's or a treasury's Coinbase account with its own key, where the person wants sandbox tests and portfolio scoping. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 80 against 48; Agent ergonomics, 73 against 61; Security & auth, 68 against 62; Maintenance & community, 57 against 41; Transparency & trust, 67 against 49. Also Free to start without a card.

| Category | Bitfinex API | Coinbase Advanced Trade API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 85 | 58 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 48 | 80 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 61 | 73 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 62 | 68 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 41 | 57 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 49 | 67 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Bitfinex API | Coinbase Advanced Trade API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | iFinex Inc. | Coinbase, Inc. |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| 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 service under the Coinbase User Agreement, which answered a bot check and wasn't read. The official Python SDK coinbase-advanced-py is on GitHub |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-07-18 | 2026-10-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-05-27 |
| Popularity | 480 stars | none |

Why the edge:
- Schema & documentation, Coinbase Advanced Trade API +32: 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.); Coinbase Advanced Trade API 80 (Public OpenAPI 3.1 spec (45 paths, 51 operations) and an AsyncAPI document (25). llms.txt and a Markdown twin of every docs page (10). Every operation has a summary and description, some one line, several with multi-sentence guidance for equities (14 of 20). Enums on product_type, granularity, order_status, time_in_forces, order_types, order_side and sort_by, with defaults (13 of 15). Examples in the docs and the sandbox's simulated errors, but the spec documents only a default error referencing grpc.gateway.runtime.Error, with no 4xx or 429 shapes (8 of 15). Paths carry /api/v3, the CDP changelog is dated, and the INTX retirement was announced with a date, but the spec's info.version is 0.1 and the October gateway change has no changelog entry (10 of 15). 25 + 10 + 14 + 13 + 8 + 10 = 80.)
- Reliability, Bitfinex API +27: 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.); Coinbase Advanced Trade API 58 (Read with the hosted lines. status.coinbase.com is a Statuspage site with Coinbase Advanced Trade, API, US Derivatives and International Derivatives components (20). The incidents feed we could read runs from 16 September to 3 November 2026. In it Advanced Trade was degraded for 25 minutes on 21 September, the website had a 3-minute major on 14 October, converts were down 1 hour 4 minutes on 26 October, and no incident named the API; 5 August to 15 September was beyond the feed, so minor only for the seven weeks read (15 of 30). No REST rate limit with numbers was found; the older rate-limits page answers 404 and llms.txt lists none, while the WebSocket page gives 8 connections and 8 unauthenticated messages per second per IP (5 of 15). Orders take a client_order_id, but no 429 or Retry-After guidance was found for Advanced Trade (8 of 15). No SLA (0). REST and WebSocket are generally available; the Global Derivatives gateway is a month old and not marked beta (10). 20 + 15 + 5 + 8 + 0 + 10 = 58.)
- 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.); Coinbase Advanced Trade API 20 (No machine payment protocol on the API (0). The fee schedule answered a bot check on 3 November 2026, so no per-trade price was read, and the docs give none (0 of 20, unchecked). Six public market endpoints and the sandbox need no key or card (20). A person signs up, passes verification and mints a key in the portal (0). 0 + 0 + 20 + 0 = 20.)
- Transparency & trust, Coinbase Advanced Trade API +18: Bitfinex API 49 (The editorial half. A closed service whose Exchange Terms and API Terms of Service loaded only navigation, so the licence terms are unknown; the clients are MIT and Apache-2.0 (8 of 30). The privacy statement loaded only navigation, so retention and data handling are unchecked (0 of 30). The docs say v1 will be deprecated "at some point in the future" with no date, and the Python client's 4.0.0 removed endpoints with a release note (5 of 20). Subprocessors and data locations are in the unread privacy statement (0). 8 + 0 + 5 + 0 = 13.); Coinbase Advanced Trade API 67 (The editorial half. A closed service whose user agreement answered a bot check; the OpenAPI spec is public and the Python SDK is open on GitHub (12 of 30). Privacy facts per the coinbase-cdp-agentkit check of 1 October 2026 (Coinbase, Inc., processing countries, retention tied to need without numbers), not re-read (10 of 30). INTX endpoints retired on 1 October 2026 with a dated notice and a read-only grace period (12 of 20). Processing countries and provider categories per the same earlier check, no subprocessor list (8 of 20). 12 + 10 + 12 + 8 = 42.)
- Maintenance & community, Coinbase Advanced Trade API +16: 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.); Coinbase Advanced Trade API 57 (Read as a closed hosted service. The last change to the API itself is the Global Derivatives gateway and INTX retirement of 1 October 2026, 33 days before this check; the Python SDK's v2.0.0rc1 is from 30 September (20 of 30). Dated changes in 90 days are the 1 October migration and the agents entries of 17 and 21 August, which run through Advanced Trade (12 of 20). A public changelog and a CDP Discord; SDK issues not read (8 of 15). Official Python SDK current, the rest samples (12 of 15). SDK CI not read (5 of 10). 20 + 12 + 8 + 12 + 5 = 57.)
- Agent ergonomics, Coinbase Advanced Trade API +12: 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.); Coinbase Advanced Trade API 73 (Product lists filter by product_type and product_ids with limit and offset, candles take a granularity, but fields cannot be selected and the docs warn that product lists run to hundreds of entries (15 of 25). Cursor pagination with limit on orders and fills, filters by status, product and time (16 of 20). Error codes such as INSUFFICIENT_FUND, ORDER_NOT_FOUND and PERMISSION_DENIED are documented and can be simulated in the sandbox, though the spec gives no shapes (14 of 20). client_order_id on every order; no idempotency key on other writes (16 of 20). Few required fields, an official Python SDK and sample SDKs in three languages, but each request needs a freshly signed JWT (12 of 15). 15 + 16 + 14 + 16 + 12 = 73.)