Head to head · Market prices · October 2026 research run
Databento vs Tiingo
Databento scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Tiingo's 46.2 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Tiingo leads on reliability, 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
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 39
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 56
- Security & auth, 61 against 32
- Maintenance & community, 84 against 50
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
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 50
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 22
- Transparency & trust, 57 against 49
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.
Schema & documentation Databento +36
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.
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.
Maintenance & community Databento +34
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.
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.
Security & auth Databento +29
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.
Tiingo 32
One token per account with no scopes, documented as ?token= in the URL or an Authorization header, with rotation on the account page since May 2026 (20 less 10 for the query string, plus 2 for rotation, so 12). Every endpoint is a read (15 of 20). News is third-party text and no guidance was found (5 of 15). A usage page shows hourly and daily requests and bandwidth, not a per-call log (0 of 15, no log). security.txt redirects on www and is absent on api, and no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification was found (0 of 20). 12 + 15 + 5 + 0 + 0 = 32.
Agent ergonomics Databento +24
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.
Tiingo 56
startDate, endDate, resampleFreq, format=csv and column selection on some endpoints size responses; no field selection on end-of-day prices (15 of 25). Date ranges throughout and limit and offset on news, no cursor (15 of 20). Errors are undocumented; a missing token answered 403 with a JSON detail field in our one test call (3 of 20). Every call is a read (16 of 20). Few required parameters, but no official SDK; the docs point to third-party packages (7 of 15). 15 + 15 + 3 + 16 + 7 = 56.
Reliability Tiingo +10
Databento 50
Graded as a hosted service. Atlassian Statuspage at status.databento.com with ten components, Portal, Historical, FTP and seven live feeds (20). The incident feed for the 90 days to 3 November 2026 lists a critical outage of the portal and Historical API on 6 August lasting about eight hours, critical live authentication timeouts in NY4 on 28 August for about seven hours, major batch job delays of about two days each opened on 6 and 12 October, a six-hour GLBX.MDP3 delay in the Historical API on 6 October, and a Frankfurt outage affecting XEUR and XEEE opened on 2 November and still in monitoring. Several majors (0 of 30). Per-IP limits are published with numbers (15). 429 with a Retry-After header and a code to sleep on it; streams cut off aren't billed for unsent data, batch jobs are billed once (15). No SLA found; the pricing page names none and the terms were unreadable (0). The HTTP API is at major version 0 and the docs say it is not considered stable (0 of 10). Total 50.
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.
Payments & pricing Tiingo +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.
Tiingo 30
No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Two plan prices public without login, $0 and $30 a month, sold by requests an hour and a day rather than per call; fundamentals and commercial licences by email (10). A free Starter plan at 1,000 requests a day with no card requirement stated (20). The token comes from a browser signup, and the developer programme forbids programmatic registration (0). 0 + 10 + 20 + 0 = 30.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Databento | Tiingo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 50 | 60 | Tiingo +10 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 75 | 39 | Databento +36 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 80 | 56 | Databento +24 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 61 | 32 | Databento +29 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 22 | 30 | Tiingo +8 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 84 | 50 | Databento +34 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 49 | 57 | Tiingo +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 60.3/100 | D 46.2/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Databento | Tiingo |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Databento, Inc. | Tiingo Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | https://hist.databento.com | https://api.tiingo.com |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, websocket |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (clients) | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-28 | 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 | 309 stars | none |
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.
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
Databento
- Call
metadata.get_costbeforetimeseries.get_range, and set a monthly historical limit in the portal; a duplicate streaming request is charged twice - 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 - On 429 wait for the Retry-After header; keep under 100 time series requests a second and 20 batch submissions a minute per IP
- Check status.databento.com before retrying a slow or 504 Historical request, since several incidents since August were API outages or batch delays
- Use batch download for requests over 5 GB, split by time range or
limit, and readschemaandstype_infrom the dataset page before querying
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, Databento or Tiingo?
Databento scores 60.3 (C) on agent readiness against Tiingo's 46.2 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Tiingo leads on reliability, payments & pricing and transparency & trust.
Do Databento and Tiingo need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call Databento and Tiingo without installing anything?
Yes. Databento has a hosted endpoint at https://hist.databento.com and Tiingo at https://api.tiingo.com.
Other comparisons with Databento or Tiingo
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- Databento vs Financial Datasets
- Databento vs Financial Modeling Prep
- Databento vs Finnhub
- Databento vs Intrinio
- Databento vs Massive (formerly Polygon.io)
- Databento vs Twelve Data
- 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/databento-vs-tiingo.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/databento.json·/api/v1/tools/tiingo.json - From a terminal
anchor compare databento tiingo(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "databento", "b": "tiingo"}at/mcp, no key