The 5 Best Stock APIs: A Guide for Developers [2024]

If you're a developer looking for a stock API to power your next project, look no further! In this guide, we will introduce you to the five best stock APIs available on the market. We'll discuss what each API offers and how it can benefit your project. So whether you're looking to build a simple stock tracker or an advanced financial platform, one of these APIs is sure to fit your needs!

The 5 best stock APIs for developers

The top 5 best stock APIs you can use as a developer are the following:

1. Alpha Vantage
2. Financial Modeling Pro (FMP)
3. Iexcloud
4. Morningstar API
5. Finnhub.io

Let's take a look at each option in more detail, including why it was chosen, the pros and cons, and tips to make the most out of each option.

Alpha Vantage

Alpha Vantage is a good choice for developers or analysts who are looking for simple data and are not looking to make a lot of data requests. The big differentiator for this API is the extensive set of technical indicators it covers, such as SMA, EMA, and RSI, amongst many others. You can get an API key for free and not pay unless you need more than 500 requests per day or 5 requests per minute. After that threshold, you will need to pay based on the number of data requests per minute, with the lowest tier costing $49.99 per month for 75 requests per minute.

Pros:

• Offers real-time and historical data
• Huge selection of technical indicators
• Easy to get started and use
• Can use the free API key forever

Cons:

• Limited data availability
• Limited number of stock exchanges covered
• Pricing is not ideal for large scale applications making a lot of simultaneous requests

Tips

Use this API if you are looking to make relatively few data requests or need many technical indicators, if not, look not look at the other options.

Financial Modeling Pro (FMP)

Financial Modeling Pro (FMP) this API is great for developers looking to build financial applications or use the data to train machine learning models. It offers real-time and historical stock data, as well as company fundamental data going back 30 years. The API also covers unique data that you don't find available on other API options such as SEC as reported financials and social sentiment data.

The pricing is relatively affordable, with the most affordable plan costing only $14/month.

Pros:

• Offers both real-time and historical data
• Provides company fundamental data
• Well documented
• Responsive support
• Unique datasets available
• Crypto and forex data coverage

Cons:

• Limit on the number of requests per second
• Occasional data errors
• Data standardization methods are not very explicit

Tips:

Make sure to take advantage of the well-documented API docs and reach out to support if you have any questions via their email, where they are very responsive.

Iexcloud

Iexcloud is perfect for those looking to build trading or investment apps. In addition to stock data, it also offers news, earnings data, and more. The way in which you can retrieve the data is very flexible, with many different calendar ranges supported and many quality testing parameters such as last updated. The dataset available is huge, including commodities, and economic data such as inflation and interest rates. The great thing about this API is that it is very affordable for individuals, with their pricing plan starting at $9/month.

Pros:

• Offers a wide range of data beyond just stock prices
• Has a flexible sandbox to test the API
• Well documented API docs
• Flexible data retrieval methods
• Affordable pricing for individuals
• Offers data analytics to track user usage

Cons:

• Works on a credit system where specific endpoints cost more credits than others
• Tricky to calculate the pricing for large scale applications
• The documentation is quite lengthy and complex for certain endpoints

Tips

Talk to a sales or support representative to calculate the cost per month based on your expected usage of the API, so there are no surprises at the end of the month when the bill comes

Morningstar API

The Morningstar API is ideal for those looking to build portfolio management or stock tracking applications. It offers data on over 50,000 stocks and ETFs. The great thing about this API is the excellent data reliability and reputation of the service. Citing this data source on your service provides trust and authority to your users. The pricing depends on your usage, and you will need to contact one of their sales representatives to get a quote.

Pros:

• Strong data reliability
• Large number of stocks and other securities covered

Cons:

• The service can only handle up to 500 requests per second.
• Limited datasets
• Pricing is not available

Tips

Be sure to talk to a sales representative, so you know the cost of this service before implementing this API on your application.

Finnhub.io

Finnhub.io is a great choice for developers looking to build simple applications focused on U.S data. Thir documentation and sandbox quickly get you up and running with the API. The downside is that their simple free plan does not include international stock coverage, and their paid plan starts at $1,000 per month (billed annually).

Pros:

• Extensive free plan
• Well documented and simple to use
• Great for U.S data

Cons:

• Does not include international stock coverage in their free plan
• Paid plans are very expensive, starting at $1000/month
• Limited dataset available

Tips

If you need international stock coverage, look elsewhere. If you only need U.S data for a simple application and you are looking for a free easy to geet started API, check it out.

The verdict

The best API really depends on your needs. However, based on our analysis, if you are looking to build a large-scale application around investment analysis or trading, you can't go wrong with FMP and Iexcloud. The choice between the two of them depends on your expected data usage and cost.

However, if you are looking to get occasional data requests as an individual, it is recommended you use Finhub.io to get the data you need via their free key.

So there you have it! The five best stock APIs available on the market today.

What is a stock API, and how does it work?

A stock API is an Application Programming Interface that provides developers with access to real-time or historical stock data. Stock APIs can return data in various formats, including JSON, XML, and CSV. Most stock APIs require an API key for authentication. Using simple commands such as GET and POST, developers can request data from a stock API and receive a response in the format of their choice.

Why use a stock API?

There are many reasons why you might want to use a stock API in your project. For example, you could use a stock API to build a simple stock tracker or an advanced financial platform. Stock data can also be used to perform technical analysis, backtesting of trading strategies, and machine learning or AI training.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of using a stock API?

Using a stock API has several benefits, including:

• Access to real-time or historical stock data
• No need to store or process large data sets
• Ability to perform technical analysis or backtesting
• Get stock data or other data without scraping
• Get license for data distribution on your applications

Drawbacks of using an API:

• Most stock APIs require an API key
• Most APIs require payment to make a significant number of data requests
• Some stock APIs have limits on the amount of data you can request
• You don't have control over how the data is gathered, processed, and delivered

How to get started using a stock API

If you are interested in using a stock API, we recommend checking out our guide to the best stock APIs. Once you have selected an API, you will need to sign up for an account and generate an API key. After that, you can start making requests to the API using your chosen programming language.

Most stock APIs require an API key for authentication. Using simple commands such as GET and POST, developers can request data from a stock API and receive a response in the format of their choice.

Upon receiving your API key, it is essential you read the documentation and become familiar with the API you are using. Each stock API has different endpoints, some will return more data than others, and some might be more expensive to use. The good news is that most APIs offer free keys, so you can test the waters before you decide to commit to a paid plan.

Examples of how to use a stock API in your development projects

Here are some examples of how you could use a stock API in your development projects:

• Create a simple stock tracker
• Build an advanced financial platform
• Perform technical analysis or backtesting
• Display real-time stock data on a website or blog

Using this knowledge, platforms like Seeking Alpha, Trend Spider, Trading View, Robinhood, and pretty much all major stock platforms and apps are able to retrieve valuable data that their users can use for informational or investment purposes.

No-code stock API

If you are looking to get stock data without coding, you can easily use Wisesheets on your Excel or Google Sheet spreadsheet.

Instead of making complex POST and GET requests, you can simply enter the ticker or name of the company you are looking to get data from and get all of the financial statements, key metrics, and growth metrics quarterly or annually in one click.

Now if you are looking for specific data so you can build your own investment dashboard, tracker, watch list or DCF, you can do that very simply. All you have to do is build your model using the =WISE and =WISEPRICE functions like you can see below and then just change the ticker to get all the stock data you need immediately.

Best of all, you can customize your models to include charts and organize the data; however, you can do this very quickly without a single line of code right from your spreadsheet so you can easily visualize all of it.

This is a very powerful tool for any investor or developer as it gives you instant access to all of the key data points you need to make informed decisions about which stocks to buy, sell or hold.

If you are looking for a simple way to get started with stock data without learning how to code, Wisesheets is the perfect solution for you. Click here to get your free trial now.

For a detailed guide on how Wisesheets can help you get the data, you need to make better stock investments click here.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a stock API is a great way to access real-time or historical stock data. Most stock APIs require an API key for authentication, but many offer free keys so you can test the waters before you commit to a paid plan. There are many benefits to using a stock API, including performing technical analysis or backtesting and displaying real-time stock data on a website or blog.

We hope this guide has helped you choose the right API for your project.

Happy coding!

The Wisesheest Team