Head to head · Market prices · October 2026 research run
Databento vs Twelve Data
Twelve Data scores 70 (BB) on agent readiness against Databento's 60.3 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Databento leads on security & auth. 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
- Security & auth, 61 against 54
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
Twelve Data BB
Best for Agents that need prices and time series across many exchanges and asset classes with one contract, CSV output, and a documented error table.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 83 against 50
- Schema & documentation, 83 against 75
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 22
- Transparency & trust, 67 against 49
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
The REST docs and OpenAPI accept the key as ?apikey= in the query string 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.
Reliability Twelve Data +33
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.
Twelve Data 83
Read with the hosted lines. A public status page at twelvedata.isitup.cloud lists Price API, Fundamentals API, WebSocket and Website with uptime figures (20). Its history shows two incidents in the 90 days to 3 November 2026, 20 minutes of unavailability across the three APIs on 1 September and 16 minutes on the WebSocket on 14 October, minor only (20). Limits are published with numbers, credits a minute by plan from 8 to 10,946 and 800 a day on Basic (15). The docs document a 429 on the limit and the usage endpoint, with no Retry-After or backoff guidance; reads only (8 of 15). The terms sell a 99.9 per cent SLA with service credits, and the Enterprise plan carries 99.99 per cent (10). The REST API and MCP server are generally available (10). 20 + 20 + 15 + 8 + 10 + 10 = 83.
Transparency & trust Twelve Data +18
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.
Twelve Data 67
A closed service under terms that name the entity, define internal use, business use and redistribution, and were last updated 1 January 2026; the MCP repository is open source but ships no licence file (15 of 30). The privacy policy of 22 September 2026 states retention periods and names its processors, the terms require data deletion within 30 days of termination, and no DPA is named (20 of 30). No deprecation policy or notice period; the terms allow changes and the monthly updates record them after the fact (3 of 20). Subprocessors are named on the privacy policy and the trust centre, with no data locations beyond transfer mechanisms (12 of 20). 15 + 20 + 3 + 12 = 50.
Schema & documentation Twelve Data +8
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.
Twelve Data 83
A public OpenAPI 3.1 document covers 187 operations, every one with a description and 200, 400, 401, 403, 404, 414, 429 and 500 responses, and the MCP tools in the source carry typed inputs and annotations (25). llms.txt on the site and in the docs link Markdown pages per section, pricing.md and auth.md (10). Descriptions state purpose, plan requirement and credit cost, with little on when not to use an endpoint (16 of 20). Required parameters are marked and the Markdown lists interval, adjust and type values, but none of the 3,091 parameters in the spec declares an enum (9 of 15). Examples with a demo key on every endpoint and an error table with codes and meanings (13 of 15). No version in the path, a spec at version 0.0.1, and monthly dated product updates on the news page rather than an API changelog (10 of 15). 25 + 10 + 16 + 9 + 13 + 10 = 83.
Payments & pricing Twelve Data +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.
Twelve Data 30
No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices are public without login in pricing.md and on the pricing page, sold by credits a minute per month rather than per call (10). A free Basic plan at 800 credits a day with no card (20). The key comes from a browser signup and no key API was found; MCP needs an OAuth login by a person (0). 0 + 10 + 20 + 0 = 30.
Security & auth Databento +7
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.
Twelve Data 54
The REST key is a plain per-account key with no scopes, accepted as a header or as ?apikey= (20 less 10 for the query string). The hosted MCP server refuses keys and uses OAuth 2.1 with PKCE, a resource indicator, refresh tokens, revocation and one scope, which lifts the credential model for that surface (18 of 30). Every operation is a read (15 of 20). Company news is third-party text and no guidance was found (5 of 15). An /api_usage endpoint and dashboard usage give the key holder a view of consumption, not a per-call log (6 of 15). A trust centre on SafeBase lists SOC 2, GDPR and CCPA and ten policies; no security.txt, disclosure process or bug bounty was found (10 of 20). 18 + 15 + 5 + 6 + 10 = 54.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Databento | Twelve Data | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 50 | 83 | Twelve Data +33 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 75 | 83 | Twelve Data +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 80 | 84 | Twelve Data +4 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 61 | 54 | Databento +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 22 | 30 | Twelve Data +8 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 84 | 82 | Databento +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 49 | 67 | Twelve Data +18 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 60.3/100 | BB 70/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Databento | Twelve Data |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Databento, Inc. | Twelve Data Pte. Ltd. |
| Hosted endpoint | https://hist.databento.com | https://api.twelvedata.com |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio, websocket |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (clients) | none |
| Tools exposed | none | 27 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-28 | 2026-10-12 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-01-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-09-22 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | yes |
| Popularity | 309 stars | 791 stars |
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.
Twelve Data
A public OpenAPI 3.1 document with error responses on all 187 operations, Markdown docs and pricing for agents, a status page with two short incidents in 90 days, and an MCP server behind OAuth 2.1. The REST key still travels in the query string as a documented option, no enums are declared, and free and individual plans forbid company use.
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
Twelve Data
- Send the key as
Authorization: apikey <key>, not in the URL; the hosted MCP server takes OAuth only, so never paste a key into a connector's key field - Set
outputsize(1 to 5,000, default 30) andformat=CSVon time_series to keep responses small, and readstatusin the JSON body since errors come with HTTP codes and amessage - Count credits, not calls; most endpoints cost one credit per symbol and the Basic plan allows 8 a minute and 800 a day, with 429 when exceeded
- A 403 means the key's plan lacks the endpoint or symbol, not a bad key; check pricing.md before escalating
- Use trial symbols from twelvedata.com/exchanges to test premium data on the free plan
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Databento or Twelve Data?
Twelve Data scores 70 (BB) on agent readiness against Databento's 60.3 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Databento leads on security & auth.
Do Databento and Twelve Data need an API key?
Databento needs an API key. Twelve Data takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call Databento and Twelve Data without installing anything?
Yes. Databento has a hosted endpoint at https://hist.databento.com and Twelve Data at https://api.twelvedata.com.
Other comparisons with Databento or Twelve Data
- Alpha Vantage vs Databento
- Alpha Vantage vs Twelve Data
- Benzinga vs Databento
- Databento vs EODHD
- Databento vs Financial Datasets
- Databento vs Financial Modeling Prep
- Databento vs Finnhub
- Databento vs Intrinio
- Databento vs Massive (formerly Polygon.io)
- Databento vs Tiingo
- Finnhub vs Twelve Data
- Intrinio vs Twelve Data
- Massive (formerly Polygon.io) vs Twelve Data
- Tiingo vs Twelve Data
- Financial Datasets vs Twelve Data
- Financial Modeling Prep vs Twelve Data
- EODHD vs Twelve Data
- Benzinga vs Twelve Data
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/databento-vs-twelve-data.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/databento.json·/api/v1/tools/twelve-data.json - From a terminal
anchor compare databento twelve-data(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "databento", "b": "twelve-data"}at/mcp, no key