CoinAPI vs Crypto Data API
CoinAPI is a broad exchange-data platform. It claims 400+ exchanges and 10+ years of history, with L1, L2 and L3 order books, options with Greeks, FIX and S3 flat files. Crypto Data API is narrower and cheaper. It focuses on the derived signals traders and AI agents ask for (funding, liquidations, ETF flows, volatility, market regimes) and on deep Hyperliquid data, and it has a real free tier. If you need tick-level books across hundreds of venues, CoinAPI is the better tool.
We build Crypto Data API, so read this as a vendor's comparison. Every competitor fact below comes from that provider's own pricing or documentation pages, linked under Sources, as of 2026-11-04. Prices and limits change, so check their site before you buy. If we got something wrong, email [email protected] and we'll fix it.
Which one should you use?
you need raw trades, quotes or L2/L3 order books across many exchanges, FIX connectivity, options Greeks, or bulk flat files for institutional backtests.
you want funding, open interest, liquidations, ETF flows and volatility already computed, a free tier with no card, deep Hyperliquid history, or an AI agent that pays per call in USDC.
Side-by-side comparison
| Crypto Data API | CoinAPI | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes, with no card. 100 requests/day on a new key, 1,000/day once you confirm your email (10/min). Confirming also switches Pro on for 24 hours. | No free plan. A one-time $25 usage credit, activated by adding a payment method. |
| Entry paid plan | Pro $29/mo ($19/mo billed annually): 10,000 requests/day. Pro Plus $99/mo ($79 annually): 50,000/day plus the history and Parquet archives. Enterprise from $299/mo. | Startup $79/mo ($69 annual): 1,000 REST credits/day. Streamer $249/mo, Pro $599/mo, and Pay As You Go. |
| Exchange coverage | Focused rather than exhaustive: Binance and Hyperliquid market data plus a curated set of sources, not hundreds of exchanges. | Claims 400+ exchanges and 10+ years of history. |
| Derivatives | Funding, open interest and long/short ratios (Binance, Hyperliquid). Liquidations from OKX, Bybit and Hyperliquid, and a Hyperliquid liquidation map from on-chain positions. | Funding, open interest, liquidations and mark/index prices per instrument, as interval aggregates (no tick-level metrics, no cross-venue OI aggregate). |
| Hyperliquid | Deep: funding back to 2023, one-minute mark/oracle/OI history from May 2023, every liquidation fill, the liquidation map, whale positioning, gamma exposure, and L2 snapshots every 5 minutes. | Trades, books and an L4 order feed from Hyperliquid's matching engine. |
| Order books | Hyperliquid L2 snapshots (5-minute archive) and depth analytics. No CEX order books. | L1, L2 and L3. Book data over WebSocket needs the Pro plan ($599/mo). |
| Options | No options chains. BTC/ETH implied volatility only. | Options chains, implied vol and Greeks. |
| ETF flows / volatility index | Daily BTC, ETH and SOL spot-ETF net flows by trade date, settled days only. Crypto Volatility Index (market-wide realized vol) plus Deribit BTC/ETH implied vol. | Not found on CoinAPI's pages. |
| Delivery | REST (JSON, some endpoints also in markdown), a Server-Sent Events stream (Pro) and Parquet archives. No WebSocket or FIX. | REST, WebSocket, FIX (+$99/mo below Pro), JSON-RPC, MCP and flat files (with the LMAX add-on, +$500/mo). |
| MCP server | Yes, hosted at cryptodataapi.com/mcp (API key or browser login), plus an npm package. | Yes, hosted: mcp.md.coinapi.io with 53 tools. |
| Agent pay-per-call | Yes: pay per request, buy a 1-hour to 7-day pass ($1.50–$30) or buy single archive files in USDC over x402 (Base). An agent can also mint its own free key. | Not found. |
| Using the data in your own app | Allowed on every plan, including free. Our terms only bar reselling the raw feeds in bulk as a competing data product. | Selling the data is not permitted, and showing it to external users "may be considered redistribution" that needs a sales conversation. |
Where CoinAPI is the better choice
Breadth and depth. If your strategy needs full order-book reconstruction, quotes from dozens of venues, or historical trades going back a decade, CoinAPI offers that and we don't. Its hosted MCP server with 53 tools is also a strong option for agents that need raw exchange data.
Where Crypto Data API is the better choice
Most trading agents and dashboards don't want raw ticks. They want what the market is doing: is funding stretched, where are liquidations clustered, are ETFs buying, is volatility expanding? We compute those and serve them in one call, and the free tier lets you test without a card. On Hyperliquid specifically we keep history the venue's own API doesn't: one-minute mark, oracle and open-interest snapshots from May 2023, and a liquidation map read from on-chain positions.
Cost matters at small scale too. Our Pro plan is $29 a month for 10,000 requests a day. CoinAPI's entry plan is $79 a month for 1,000 REST credits a day, and CoinAPI meters by credit rather than by request.
Using both
They don't exclude each other. A common setup is CoinAPI for execution-grade market data and Crypto Data API for the derived positioning and regime layer an agent reasons over.
More comparisons
Frequently asked questions
- Does CoinAPI have a free tier?
- Not as of November 2026. CoinAPI gives new accounts a one-time $25 usage credit, which is activated by adding a payment method. Crypto Data API has a free tier of 100 requests a day, rising to 1,000 a day once you confirm your email, with no card.
- Does CoinAPI have an MCP server?
- Yes. CoinAPI runs a hosted MCP server at mcp.md.coinapi.io with 53 tools, authenticated with your CoinAPI key. Crypto Data API also has a hosted MCP server, at cryptodataapi.com/mcp.
- Which is cheaper for a small trading bot?
- For derived data such as funding, liquidations and regimes, Crypto Data API: Pro is $29 a month for 10,000 requests a day. CoinAPI's entry subscription is $79 a month for 1,000 REST credits a day. If you need raw order-book data, the comparison doesn't apply, because we don't sell CEX order books.
- Can I show Crypto Data API data in a public app?
- Yes, on every plan including free. Our terms only prohibit reselling the raw feeds in bulk as a competing data product. CoinAPI's usage policy says displaying its data to external users may be considered redistribution, which needs a conversation with their sales team.
A free key gives you 100 requests a day straight away and 1,000 a day once you confirm your email, with no card. Every endpoint is documented, and the same data is available to AI agents through our MCP server.
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