Head to head · Market prices · October 2026 research run

Databento vs Financial Modeling Prep

Databento scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Financial Modeling Prep's 48.7 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Financial Modeling Prep leads on payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do market prices.

Best financial market data APIs for AI agents · All 55 markets comparisons

Which one, for what

Databento C

Best for An agent that needs exchange-level trades, quotes, order book and bar data for US and European futures, options and equities, or corporate actions and a security master, and can budget per GB.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 75 against 61
  • Agent ergonomics, 80 against 59
  • Security & auth, 61 against 30
  • Maintenance & community, 84 against 60

Watch for

Two critical and several major incidents on the status page in the 90 days to 3 November 2026, mostly Historical API outages and batch job delays

Financial Modeling Prep D

Best for Agents doing company research on statements, ratios, DCF, filings, transcripts and calendars with one key, and US coverage on cheap plans.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 30 against 22
  • Transparency & trust, 57 against 49

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

The documented MCP connection URL puts the API key in the query string, and the REST docs accept ?apikey= too

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.

Security & auth Databento +31

Databento 61

Named API keys, up to 100 per account, rotated or deleted in the portal, with per-member permissions, sent only as the Basic auth username; no scopes per key and no expiry (25 of 30). Every API call is a read, and a monthly historical limit caps what a leaked key can spend; live usage is not capped (14 of 20). The API returns market data and reference records, not free text from third parties (10). A data usage page in the portal and a billing page per cycle, with no per-key call log documented (8 of 15). The vendor revokes keys it finds in public and documents key hygiene; security.txt returns 404 and no bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001 was found on readable pages (4 of 20). Total 61.

Financial Modeling Prep 30

One key per account with no scopes, accepted as a header or as ?apikey=, and the documented MCP address carries it in the URL (20 less 10 for the query string, so 10). Every endpoint is a read (15 of 20). News, press releases, transcripts and filings are third-party text and no guidance on treating them as untrusted was found (5 of 15). No usage log or per-call record for the key holder was found (0 of 15). security.txt returns 404, the Trust Center link returns 404, and no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification was found (0 of 20). 10 + 15 + 5 + 0 + 0 = 30.

Maintenance & community Databento +24

Databento 84

Python 0.89.0 on 28 October 2026 and data release notes dated 20 October (30). Python 0.85.0 (25 August), 0.86.0 (1 September), 0.87.0 (22 September), 0.88.0 (21 October) and 0.89.0, plus Rust 0.64.0 and C++ 0.69.0 on 27 October and four dated data notes since 8 August (20). A Slack community, Intercom chat, support@databento.com, a public roadmap and a public issue tracker linked from the release notes; GitHub issue replies were not read because the GitHub API rate limit was reached (12 of 15). Official clients in Python, C++ and Rust released the same week as each other (15). The Python client is Apache-2.0 with releases on GitHub and PyPI; CI and dependency pins were not checked (7 of 10). Total 84.

Financial Modeling Prep 60

Read as a closed service. The changelog's newest entry is 2 November 2026 (30). Entries dated 6, 8, 12, 28 and 29 October and 2 November 2026, more than three in 90 days (20). A public changelog, a help centre, FAQs and a support address, with issues reported through a site chatbot per the FAQ (10 of 15). No official SDK; the FAQ points at third-party packages (0 of 15). No package to assess, and nothing else to show for CI or dependency health (0 of 10). 30 + 20 + 10 + 0 + 0 = 60.

Agent ergonomics Databento +21

Databento 80

limit, time ranges to the nanosecond, schema choice from trades to daily bars, encoding choice and metadata.get_cost to size a request before paying (20 of 25). Symbol, date and schema filters, batch jobs listed and fetched by id, no cursor pagination because ranges are split by time (16 of 20). Errors carry an HTTP code, a named identifier, a message and a docs link, with 206 for partially resolved symbols (17 of 20). Reads only on the historical and reference APIs; a duplicate streaming request is charged twice, batch is billed once, and the portal can cap monthly spend (12 of 20). Few required parameters, and official clients in Python, C++ and Rust (15). Total 80.

Financial Modeling Prep 59

The REST API is the surface graded. limit and page on list endpoints, from and to on series, and batch quote endpoints size responses, with no field selection (15 of 25). Page and limit parameters on lists and date filters on series, no cursor (15 of 20). A missing key returned 401 with an Error Message text field in our one test call, and no error reference exists (5 of 20). Every call is a GET read; the MCP server's annotations were not read (16 of 20). Few required parameters and sensible defaults, but no official SDK in any language (8 of 15). 15 + 15 + 5 + 16 + 8 = 59.

Schema & documentation Databento +14

Databento 75

No OpenAPI document was found. The contract is the per-endpoint reference with typed parameters, the DBN schemas with field tables and enums, and a .http.md variant of every page (8 of 25). llms.txt and a Markdown twin of every page with language variants (10). Endpoint pages say what each call returns and the basics pages say when to use streaming against batch (15 of 20). Typed parameters with enums for schema, encoding, symbology type and split duration (13 of 15). Code in Python, C++, Rust and curl on every page, and an error table with codes, named error identifiers and a docs link in each body (14 of 15). Semantic versioning with dated release notes per component, breaking changes and deprecations called out (15). Total 75.

Financial Modeling Prep 61

No OpenAPI document was found. The MCP page says the server supplies strict parameter definitions, but the tool list needs a key and was not read (5 of 25). llms.txt links api-docs.md and pricing.md, Markdown written for agents (10). Each of the 199 endpoints in api-docs.md has a purpose paragraph and a plan marker in pricing.md, with little on when not to use it (13 of 20). Parameters are tabled with type, example and a required star, but allowed values sit in prose and no enums are given (8 of 15). Every endpoint has an example request and response; no error responses are documented anywhere we read (10 of 15). A /stable path, legacy /v3 and /v4 marked discontinued, and a changelog dated by day through 2 November 2026 (15). 5 + 10 + 13 + 8 + 10 + 15 = 61.

Payments & pricing Financial Modeling Prep +8

Databento 22

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plans are public ($199, $1,750 and $4,500 a month) and historical data is metered per GB, but the per-dataset rates are in the portal catalogue behind a login and the pricing page's estimator shows only an example (12 of 20). $125 of credits for every new user, expiring after six months; whether a card is needed at signup was not found on the pricing, credits or billing pages (10 of 20). A person signs up in a browser and creates keys in the portal; no key API (0). Total 22.

Financial Modeling Prep 30

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Four personal plans priced per month by calls a minute, public without login, with per-endpoint plan limits in pricing.md; commercial prices are by agreement (10). A free Basic plan at 250 calls a day with no card stated (20). The key comes from a browser signup and no key API was found (0). 0 + 10 + 20 + 0 = 30.

Transparency & trust Financial Modeling Prep +8

Databento 49

A closed service whose terms could not be read, because databento.com/legal and its /terms and /privacy pages are drawn by script; the client libraries are Apache-2.0 (10 of 30). The privacy policy was unread for the same reason, and the docs say nothing about retention of account data (0 of 30, unchecked). Dated release notes carry deprecations, and the versioning policy keeps a prior major version for a year after the next (18 of 20). No subprocessor list or data location statement was found on readable pages; the architecture docs name the company's own data centres (0 of 20). Total 28.

Financial Modeling Prep 57

A closed service under terms that are clear on personal and commercial use and on display licensing, last updated 1 August 2023, but that name no legal entity, address or governing law (12 of 30). The privacy policy is undated, keeps data for as long as necessary with no periods, says no third parties receive data while naming Google AdSense and Analytics, and no DPA was found (8 of 30). The docs keep a Legacy section and api-docs.md says /v3 and /v4 are discontinued, with no notice period stated; behaviour changes such as the Economics Indicators default window appear in the dated changelog (8 of 20). Google services are the only processors named and no data location is given (5 of 20). 12 + 8 + 8 + 5 = 33.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDatabentoFinancial Modeling PrepEdge
Reliability16%205050even
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27561Databento +14
Agent ergonomics13%16.28059Databento +21
Security & auth14%17.56130Databento +31
Payments & pricing10%12.52230Financial Modeling Prep +8
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88460Databento +24
Transparency & trust7%8.84957Financial Modeling Prep +8
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 60.3/100D 48.7/100

Facts side by side

FactDatabentoFinancial Modeling Prep
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorDatabento, Inc.Financial Modeling Prep
Hosted endpointhttps://hist.databento.comhttps://financialmodelingprep.com/stable
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0 (clients)none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-282026-11-02
Terms last updatedcouldn't be readcouldn't be read
Privacy policy last updatedcouldn't be readcouldn't be read
Customer content may train modelscouldn't be readcouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accesscouldn't be readcouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingcouldn't be readcouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticecouldn't be readcouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waivercouldn't be readcouldn't be read
Popularity309 starsnone

Verdicts

Databento

Exchange-level tick and order book data metered per GB, with published per-IP rate limits, Retry-After on 429, dated release notes and clients in three languages. The HTTP API is still at major version 0, the status page lists two critical and several major incidents in 90 days, there is no OpenAPI document, and the legal pages were unreadable.

Financial Modeling Prep

About 199 stable REST endpoints with Markdown docs for agents, a dated changelog and a free key at 250 calls a day. The one key travels in the query string on the documented MCP address, error responses and 429 handling are undocumented, the status history could not be read, and personal plans forbid any company use.

Before you call either

Databento

  1. Call metadata.get_cost before timeseries.get_range, and set a monthly historical limit in the portal; a duplicate streaming request is charged twice
  2. Send the key as the Basic auth username (-u $DATABENTO_API_KEY:) to hist.databento.com/v0; never put it in the URL or source code
  3. On 429 wait for the Retry-After header; keep under 100 time series requests a second and 20 batch submissions a minute per IP
  4. Check status.databento.com before retrying a slow or 504 Historical request, since several incidents since August were API outages or batch delays
  5. Use batch download for requests over 5 GB, split by time range or limit, and read schema and stype_in from the dataset page before querying

Financial Modeling Prep

  1. Send the key as an apikey header, not in the URL, and treat the MCP ?apikey= address as a secret
  2. Use the /stable paths from api-docs.md; /api/v3 and /v4 are discontinued even though the FAQ still shows a v3 example
  3. On the free plan expect 5 results and page 0 on many list endpoints; read pricing.md before planning a crawl
  4. A missing or wrong key returns HTTP 401 with an Error Message field; stop and ask the user rather than retry
  5. Do not display or pass on the data in a product; personal plans forbid it

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Databento or Financial Modeling Prep?

Databento scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Financial Modeling Prep's 48.7 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Financial Modeling Prep leads on payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

Do Databento and Financial Modeling Prep need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Databento and Financial Modeling Prep without installing anything?

Yes. Databento has a hosted endpoint at https://hist.databento.com and Financial Modeling Prep at https://financialmodelingprep.com/stable.

Other comparisons with Databento or Financial Modeling Prep

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