Kaiko and Amberdata alternatives for crypto market data
Kaiko, Amberdata, CoinAPI, CoinDesk Data, Tardis.dev and Comparand compared by published coverage, history, delivery and price, and who each suits.
Which tool fits depends on the data you need. If you need order-book history or every individual trade, Kaiko, CoinAPI, CoinDesk Data and Tardis.dev all describe selling it. Kaiko lists starting prices from $1,000 to $2,500 a month, and CoinAPI's monthly plans start at $79. If you need price bars for research and past-chart search, Comparand is a smaller option: its bar tools are free on any key. It does not sell order-book depth.
Amberdata is now part of Kaiko, so it is no longer a separate choice we could confirm. Prices and coverage below are as the companies publish them. They change, so check the linked pages before you buy. Comparand's searches show past cases, not a forecast.
For tick-level trade and order-book data, see Tardis.dev alternatives.
What is the difference between bars, trades and order books?
A bar (also called a candle) records the open, high, low and close price over a set time, plus the volume traded. Volume is the amount traded.
A trade is one match between a buyer and a seller. A list of trades shows every match, in order.
An order book is the list of waiting offers to buy and sell at each price. It shows how deep the market is at each price.
Tick-level data means every single update, not a summary. Each step from bars to trades to order books gives you more detail and a much larger file. It usually costs more too. Pick the smallest kind that answers your question. Our guide to crypto market data APIs covers cheaper options.
What happened to Amberdata?
Kaiko published an announcement that it acquired Amberdata. It describes Amberdata as an institutional data business with derivatives analytics, on-chain data and market intelligence.
Amberdata's old pricing page now leads to that announcement. Its old market-data page leads to Kaiko's data page. We could not confirm a separate current Amberdata offer or price. Kaiko's prices are not Amberdata quotes, so ask Kaiko which Amberdata data is still sold and on what terms.
We also leave out older Amberdata coverage counts and history terms. The pages that supported them no longer say those things.
How do the main options compare?
Prices are in US dollars as published. History and coverage figures are company claims, not something we tested.
| Option | What it publishes | Published price | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kaiko | Trades, order books and OHLCV; 100+ exchanges; OHLCV claimed back to 2010 and order books to 2015 | From $1,000/month (L1 Aggregations) to $2,500/month (L2 Tick-Level) | Firms that need order-book history |
| Amberdata | Part of Kaiko now | No separate price confirmed | Ask Kaiko |
| CoinAPI | Trades, quotes, OHLCV, order books, options, funding, open interest, liquidations; 400+ exchanges | Startup $79/month, Streamer $249, Pro $599; pay as you go with $25 free credits | Developers who want one API with many delivery methods |
| CoinDesk Data | Trade, derivatives, order book and on-chain data; 300+ exchanges, 10,000+ coins | No public price found; the site invites you to book a call | Firms that also want indices and research |
| Tardis.dev | Tick-level order book updates, trades, funding, open interest, liquidations; 50+ exchanges | No per-plan dollar price on the billing page we read | Quants who want raw tick history |
| Comparand | Free bars (1 minute to 1 day), funding, and trades up to 24 hours per call; chart search | Free tools on any key; Starter $19/month, or pay as you go from $5 | Researchers and AI agents that want bars plus past-chart search |
Sources: Kaiko's data page, CoinAPI, CoinDesk Data and Tardis.dev.
What does each Kaiko package cover?
Kaiko supplies trades, order books and OHLCV through APIs, streaming, files and cloud delivery. Its page says REST OHLCV bars run from 1 second to 1 day. It also claims spot and derivatives markets, on centralized and decentralized exchanges.
The 2010 OHLCV date and 2015 order-book date describe the whole dataset. They are not start dates for every coin on every exchange. Ask for the exact dates for your market. After the Amberdata deal, Kaiko describes combined infrastructure covering 200+ exchanges. That is a different scope from the 100+ on its data page.
L1 and L2 are Kaiko's package names. The L2 packages cost more. These are starting prices, not a full quote for every exchange, delivery method or license.
What do CoinAPI, CoinDesk Data and Tardis.dev publish?
CoinAPI lists REST, WebSocket, FIX, JSON-RPC, MCP and S3 flat files as ways to get data. It claims about 916k symbols, 18k+ assets and more than 678 TB of history. Its plans give 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000 REST credits per day (Startup, Streamer, Pro). Annual billing lowers the monthly prices to $69, $199 and $499. We did not find rate-limit numbers on its product page, and its pricing page notes some of its own inconsistencies.
CoinDesk Data was formerly called CryptoCompare. It claims historical data back to 2010 at daily, hourly and minute detail. It also sells indices and research. It announced that its free API tier would end on 21 May 2026, after which accounts without a subscription stop returning data. We found no public prices.
Tardis.dev sells tick-level history, with free CSV samples limited to the first day of each month. It says its Hyperliquid history starts on 2024-10-29, with trades and 20-level order book snapshots about every 5.4 seconds. Its billing page says monthly plans include 4 months of history, quarterly plans 12 months and yearly plans 4 years. Business yearly includes all available history. It also says subscriptions auto-renew and that it gives no refunds. It states Binance futures history starts on 2019-11-17, and that Binance futures data before 2020-05-14 may have gaps. Our guide to Tardis.dev alternatives goes deeper on tick data.
Where is Comparand narrower?
Comparand does not offer order-book depth or Hyperliquid trade-level data. Trades are available only from some other exchanges, for at most 24 hours per call. If you need years of tick-by-tick history or order-book snapshots, Kaiko, CoinAPI, CoinDesk Data or Tardis.dev are the better fit.
Its market data covers Hyperliquid plus dozens of other exchanges, and most of those are price bars only. That is fewer than the 100+, 300+ and 400+ exchanges the vendors above claim. Chart-search history is also shorter: hourly bars start in January 2017 on Coinbase and September 2019 on Binance.
Where does Comparand fit better?
Comparand finds past charts that look like today's and shows what price did next. A search compares a coin only with its own past on the same exchange. The six venue data tools are free with any key, and a key comes with a plan or a first pay-as-you-go purchase of $5 or more. Starter is $19 a month. That is far below Kaiko's $1,000 starting price, but it is also a different product: bars, funding and past-chart search, not order books.
It also works inside AI apps through MCP, a standard way for AI apps to use outside tools. See our guide to connecting Claude or ChatGPT to crypto data.
How can you test a vendor before paying?
- Ask for one week of data for your exact market, such as Binance BTCUSDT perps.
- Check that the first available date matches your market, not just Bitcoin.
- Spot-check a few hours against the exchange's own chart.
- Ask for the full price in writing, including license and delivery.
How we measured this
We read each company's official pricing, product and documentation pages, and linked the main sources above. We wrote down published prices, coverage claims and history terms. We did not download data from these services. We did not test speed, accuracy, gaps or support, and we did not measure trading results. Where a page did not show a price or a term, we say so instead of guessing.
Try this in Comparand
Ask your connected AI agent these plain questions:
- "Which exchanges and markets can I request?" venue_coverage lists exchanges and prediction markets with their datasets and bar sizes. It is free.
- "Show completed hourly bars for this symbol on this exchange for last week." venue_bars returns open, high, low, close and volume for any start and end, completed bars only. Bar sizes run from 1 minute to 1 day. It is free.
- "Show the trades for this symbol in the last few hours." venue_trades returns trades for at most 24 hours per call, on exchanges that publish them. It is free.
- "What do Starter, Pro and Desk cost?" On the pricing page, Starter is $19 a month with $30 of credits and 60 requests per minute. Pro is $79 and Desk is $249.
You can also try 3 coins free to see past-chart search. Check the docs to connect an agent.
The short version
- Bars, trades and order books grow in detail and cost. Pick the smallest that answers your question.
- Kaiko, CoinAPI, CoinDesk Data and Tardis.dev describe selling order-book or tick-level history.
- Amberdata is now part of Kaiko. Ask Kaiko what is still sold.
- Comparand offers free bars, funding, short trade windows and past-chart search, with no order-book depth.
- Test one market and one week before you pay anyone.
Questions people ask
What is a good alternative to Kaiko?
It depends on what you need. CoinAPI, CoinDesk Data and Tardis.dev also sell trades and order books. Comparand is a smaller option for hourly and daily price bars and past-chart search, and it has no order-book depth.
Is Amberdata still a separate company?
Kaiko announced that it acquired Amberdata. Amberdata's old pricing and market-data pages now lead to Kaiko's announcement and Kaiko's data page. We could not confirm a separate current Amberdata price list, so ask Kaiko.
How much does Kaiko cost?
Kaiko's data page lists starting prices of $1,000 a month for L1 Aggregations, $1,500 for L1 Tick-Level, $2,000 for L2 Aggregations and $2,500 for L2 Tick-Level. These are starting prices, not full quotes.
Do I need order-book data for research?
Only if your question depends on the waiting offers to buy and sell, such as how deep the market was. Many chart studies use bars alone. Bars are smaller files than trades or order books.