Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Alpaca Trading API VS Twelve Data

Compare Alpaca Trading API VS Twelve Data and see what are their differences

Alpaca Trading API logo Alpaca Trading API

Simple REST API for commission-free stock trading

Twelve Data logo Twelve Data

The simplest and most effective way to access both realtime and historical stock, forex, cryptocurrency data, and over 100 technical indicators.
  • Alpaca Trading API Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-10
  • Twelve Data Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-23

Alpaca Trading API features and specs

  • Commission-Free Trading
    Alpaca offers commission-free trading, which allows users to execute trades without incurring additional costs.
  • API-First Platform
    Alpaca is designed to be API-first, providing robust, well-documented REST and WebSocket APIs for algorithmic trading and automation.
  • Paper Trading
    The platform provides a paper trading feature where users can test their strategies in a simulated environment without using real money.
  • Integration with Popular Platforms
    Alpaca integrates with popular trading platforms and services like TradingView, enabling users to leverage these tools in conjunction with their Alpaca trading accounts.
  • Relatively High API Rate Limits
    Alpaca provides generous rate limits on API requests, allowing for efficient data retrieval and order execution for active traders.

Possible disadvantages of Alpaca Trading API

  • Limited Asset Classes
    Alpaca primarily focuses on U.S. equities and ETFs, limiting the variety of assets available for trading compared to other platforms offering forex, futures, options, or cryptocurrencies.
  • No Direct Customer Support
    While Alpaca provides extensive documentation and a supportive community, there is limited direct customer support, which might be challenging for users needing immediate help.
  • Restrictions on Short Selling
    There are certain restrictions when it comes to short selling, which could be a limitation for traders employing specific strategies.
  • Limited Educational Resources
    Compared to other trading platforms, Alpaca offers relatively fewer educational resources, including tutorials or courses, which can be a disadvantage for beginners.
  • Geographical Restrictions
    Alpaca is primarily available to users in the U.S., limiting access for international traders interested in using the platform.

Twelve Data features and specs

  • Comprehensive Data Coverage
    Twelve Data provides access to a wide range of financial data including real-time and historical data for stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, indices, and forex, which is beneficial for comprehensive market analysis.
  • Affordable Pricing
    Twelve Data offers a variety of pricing plans, including a free tier with essential features, which makes it accessible to individual developers and small businesses.
  • Ease of Use
    The API is designed to be user-friendly with well-documented endpoints, making it easy for developers to integrate the service into their applications.
  • High Scalability
    Twelve Data offers robust and scalable API solutions that can handle a large volume of requests, suitable for both small projects and large-scale applications.
  • Global Market Coverage
    The platform provides data from global markets, allowing users to access information from multiple exchanges around the world.

Possible disadvantages of Twelve Data

  • Limited Advanced Features
    While Twelve Data offers a wide range of basic and intermediate features, it may lack some of the advanced analytics and tools needed by experienced traders or larger financial institutions.
  • Rate Limits on Lower Tiers
    The free and lower-tiered plans come with rate limits that can be restrictive for users requiring frequent data access or handling high traffic.
  • Dependency on API Availability
    As with any third-party data provider, users are dependent on the API's uptime and reliability, which can impact applications if there are outages or downtime.
  • Potential Data Lag for Free Plan
    Users on the free plan may experience delays or less frequent updates compared to those on paid plans, which can be a drawback for time-sensitive applications.

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Twelve Data videos

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Alpaca Trading API and Twelve Data)
Investing
75 75%
25% 25
Finance
61 61%
39% 39
Fintech
100 100%
0% 0
Finance Data API
0 0%
100% 100

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Alpaca Trading API and Twelve Data

Alpaca Trading API Reviews

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Twelve Data Reviews

  1. Best API for real-time financial data

    Straightforward to use and powerful API to get financial data in real-time and complete historical data. Best in class Python package.

    🏁 Competitors: Alpha Vantage, Polygon.io
    👍 Pros:    Equity data|Forex|Crypto|Affordable|Reliable

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Alpaca Trading API should be more popular than Twelve Data. It has been mentiond 59 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Alpaca Trading API mentions (59)

  • Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2025)
    Alpaca.Markets | REMOTE (EU or US, EU preferred) | Software Engineer, Senior Software Engineer | varies on location Alpaca [0] offers brokerage APIs that let you (and your customers) trade various financial instruments all around the world. I'm helping Alpaca set up a new team focused on crypto perpetual futures — they're a really elegant abstraction for trading with varying leverage, and most crypto traders... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Elliott says Nvidia is in a 'bubble' and AI is 'overhyped'
    You can continuously roll options contracts. I don't know if any broker offers an order type to roll automatically; otherwise I really like Alpaca's API (https://alpaca.markets/). - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • anyone using Alpaca for long term investing?
    Is there anyone using Alpaca for long term and passive investing? I am neither a US nor Europe residence, so it is pretty hard to find a decent broker. I came across alpaca.market https://alpaca.markets/ and noticed that there is zero comission for buying and selling stocks. I know that it has pretty good API especially for developers and day traders, but I am particularly interested in long term passive... Source: almost 2 years ago
  • ChatGPT is going to revolutionize the stock market
    No worries at all! https://alpaca.markets/ is another route for market data. Real time data is cheaper but it is lacking technical analysis. We used to use it and it's pretty good. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Python Algotrading with Machine Learning
    Access to historical data from Alpaca and Yahoo Finance, or from your own data provider. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
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Twelve Data mentions (7)

  • Top 5 Free Financial Data APIs for Building a Powerful Stock Portfolio Tracker ⚡
    Twelve Data provides extensive financial market coverage, making it ideal for those looking for a free API for building a stock portfolio tracker. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Webflow Crypto Market Data Ticker
    I'd suggest Twelve Data for the financial data feed, if you have a budget for this: https://twelvedata.com/. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Where can I find a free source of historical S&P500 index data at hourly intervals?
    You can use https://twelvedata.com/ they offer an API and their free plan allows 800 credits a day so over a number of days you could get what you need. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Weekend Discussion Thread for the Weekend of May 06, 2022
    Twelve Data has a free one but don't know how good it is. u/flarmster that's the one I was talking about. Do you know a better one? Source: almost 3 years ago
  • An ePaper ticker for PM spot prices. Code on github.
    I looked into the code and found that it uses twelvedata.com for the api. I registered there to test it out but with the free api key you can not get the price for silver it seems? "**symbol** XAG is not available with your plan." Anyone knows a free api where I can access silver charts for free? Source: about 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Alpaca Trading API and Twelve Data, you can also consider the following products

Robinhood - Free stock trading service.

Alpha Vantage - Alpha Vantage offers free APIs in JSON and CSV formats for realtime and historical stock and forex data, digital/crypto currency data and over 50 technical indicators.

VisualHFT - Explore VisualHFT for unparalleled real-time market analytics and trading surveillance. Gain deep insights into market microstructure, identify hidden market trends, and monitor your trading infrastructure with precision.

Polygon.io - Polygon.io offers streaming realtime data for stocks/equities, ETFs, Indecies and Forex/Currencies including crypto currencies. Our Real-Time Stock Data APIs help you build the future on fintech.

eToro - The social investment network that connects traders from around the globe and enables them to share...

FinancialData.net - Stock Market and Financial Data API