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Yahoo Finance's API is considered the pioneer among all financial APIs available today. Prior to its launch, people relied on the outdated method of manually downloading CSV files from various websites, which was both time-consuming and inefficient. The introduction of Yahoo Finance’s API completely transformed this process by providing easily accessible API endpoints for a wide range of financial data.
Although the official Yahoo Finance API was discontinued some time ago and now only allows data access via its website and download options, there are unofficial libraries like yfinance that scrape the data. However, these solutions often lack reliability and consistency. For more dependable service and access to a broader set of data, there are numerous other data providers offering APIs with all the essential financial data and more.
What does Yahoo Finance offer today?
Yahoo Finance currently provides a broad spectrum of services aimed at investors, offering key tools such as real-time stock quotes, market news, portfolio management, and financial analysis. Although API access is no longer available, data can still be downloaded in CSV format. For more advanced features, Yahoo Finance Plus offers premium services that include enhanced charting tools, exclusive research reports, and deeper data insights.
Premium subscribers also benefit from comprehensive portfolio management, personalized investment recommendations, and detailed market trend analysis. Furthermore, Yahoo Finance provides stock screeners, global financial data, and additional tools like currency converters to help investors refine their strategies. For active traders, features like historical financial data, technical chart patterns, and specialized stock screeners cater to more advanced needs.
Types of Data Provided by Yahoo Finance
Following Yahoo’s recent pricing update, institutional-level financial data — such as income statements, balance sheets, cash flow reports, and years of historical EOD data — are now available for download via its web platform, but only with the highest-tier subscription plan. Due to the absence of an API, developers now have to manually extract and process this data for their applications.
As Yahoo shifts its focus from data provision to other services like portfolio management and stock screeners, many data-centric users are turning to alternatives that offer easier, faster data extraction via APIs.
yfinance library
yfinance is an unofficial Python library that scrapes financial data from Yahoo Finance’s website, offering users a convenient way to download stock prices, historical market data, financial statements, dividends, and more. It’s a widely used tool for automating financial analysis tasks like portfolio tracking, stock research, and backtesting in Python. Although yfinance is free and relatively user-friendly, it has several limitations due to its reliance on web scraping, which makes it vulnerable to disruptions if Yahoo Finance makes changes to its website.
Key Drawbacks of yfinance:
Reliability Concerns: Since the library depends on scraping Yahoo Finance’s website, even minor changes to the site can affect its functionality. This lack of official support means there’s no dedicated team to quickly resolve issues, which can create risks for developers building applications around it.
Limited Data Availability: While yfinance provides essential historical and fundamental data, this may not be sufficient for investors and analysts looking for a competitive edge. It lacks alternative data sources, such as economic indicators, news sentiment, and real-time updates, which are crucial for comprehensive analysis.
Alternatives to Yahoo Finance API
In this section, we'll dive into some strong alternatives to the Yahoo Finance API. Based on personal experience with various financial APIs, the following options stand out as the top contenders:
EODHD APIs (EOD Historical Data)
Finnhub
Twelve Data
Alpha Vantage
Finage
These APIs are evaluated based on three key criteria: ease of use, quality of documentation, and the range of features offered. Let’s take a closer look at each one.
1. EOD Historical Data (EODHD APIs)
EODHD ranks first on this list for several compelling reasons.
One major benefit is its extensive range of API endpoints, which cover everything from basic historical prices, fundamental data, and real-time feeds to stock screeners and economic calendars. These APIs work for a variety of assets, including stocks, ETFs, forex pairs, digital currencies, and indices. Particularly useful for backtesting is the stock tick data API, making it an excellent tool for both traders and developers. Be sure to check their pricing for a comprehensive list of available data.
Another key advantage of EODHD is its well-organized documentation and the comprehensive Financial APIs Academy, which includes real-life use cases and sample code. Additionally, their live 24/7 customer support ensures that users can get assistance whenever they need it.
EODHD also offers no-code solutions, such as Excel and Google Sheets add-ons, which provide easy data access without requiring any programming skills. This feature is especially helpful for users who previously relied on CSV downloads from Yahoo Finance.
In terms of pricing, EODHD offers a competitive structure. Their free plan is an excellent way to explore the API, and for just $19.99, users gain access to over 30 years of global historical price data, a significant savings compared to Yahoo Finance’s $49.95 Gold plan, which only allows CSV downloads. For more advanced users, the All-in-One package at $99.99 delivers historical, fundamental, real-time, and intraday data, along with Financial News, 40,000 stock logos, and a Screener API — offering great value for money.
One of the most commendable aspects of EODHD is its clear and straightforward pricing. While other providers might use ambiguous terms like "API credits" or "API messages", EODHD clearly outlines the features in each subscription plan, making it easy for users to understand what they’re paying for. In my experience, there are no major drawbacks, which is why EODHD tops this list.
Additionally, EODHD offers an API Marketplace where users can sell their financial products, generate income, and gain exposure. This collaboration not only allows customers to monetize their products but also benefits from EODHD’s broad user base and marketing efforts, making it an ideal platform for expanding reach in the financial data sector.
Their detailed API usage dashboard, complete with charts and stats, also adds value to the platform. Plus, the EODHD is a hub where companies can buy data directly from exchanges.
In conclusion, EOD Historical Data is an excellent alternative to Yahoo Finance API, catering to both beginners looking to get started and advanced users aiming to conduct in-depth research or develop commercial applications.
2. Finnhub
There’s pretty much nothing wrong about Finnhub. They offer a wide range of API endpoints, including some unique datasets like analyst estimates, thematic investing data, and extensive historical data.
While their website may not be the best, it does a decent job of communicating their services. The documentation is well-structured, and they offer a variety of subscription plans.
However, the most frustrating aspect of Finnhub is the severe limitations of their free-tier account, which lacks access to even some of the most basic APIs. In comparison, other financial APIs provide much more in their free tiers.
It’s clear Finnhub’s strategy is to push users toward paid plans, but this can be quite off-putting, especially for those who are simply exploring various APIs. Despite this drawback, Finnhub remains a solid resource for market data and can still be considered a strong alternative to the Yahoo Finance API.
3. Twelve Data
Moving on to the third alternative to the Yahoo Finance API, we have Twelve Data. I stumbled upon this financial API while exploring potential replacements for Yahoo Finance, eventually discovering it before learning about EODHD APIs.
Twelve Data excels at storytelling with its well-designed product page, which is both visually appealing and informative. It clearly showcases their offerings with various code snippets and real-world examples.
Compared to EODHD, Twelve Data’s API offerings are somewhat fewer, but they cover all the essential needs. In terms of ease of use, they’re on par with other top options, offering some of the most well-structured and clean API responses.
Twelve Data’s documentation stands out. It's systematically organized and thoroughly maintained, with every API accompanied by examples of the HTTP request URL and the JSON response. This allows users to easily visualize the data they will retrieve and prepare for the necessary data processing tasks.
A small but helpful feature in their documentation is the labeling of APIs by importance, making navigation simpler and allowing users to quickly find the most commonly used endpoints.
Additionally, Twelve Data’s API documentation is efficiently categorized, which enhances the overall user experience by eliminating the hassle of searching through vast sections to find the relevant API documentation.
However, Twelve Data falls short in its pricing structure, which is split by markets. This can be confusing for companies that require data from multiple exchanges. As a result, they may need to purchase several subscription plans, which can become frustrating and costly.
While it may not be the best choice for building large-scale applications due to its limited range of API endpoints, Twelve Data remains a solid alternative to Yahoo Finance API for smaller or more focused projects.
4. Alpha Vantage
Next on the list of alternatives to Yahoo Finance is Alpha Vantage.
Alpha Vantage is widely regarded as a go-to for beginners, largely due to its impressive free-tier plan, which allows up to 500 API calls per day at no cost. This plan provides access to nearly all of their API endpoints, including historical and fundamental data, technical indicators, and more.
However, Alpha Vantage does have its limitations. First, it may not be the ideal choice for professionals or developers working on large-scale applications. Compared to other financial APIs, Alpha Vantage offers fewer features, which could hinder those with more advanced needs.
Second, the scope of data is somewhat restricted to basics like time series data, fundamental data, and technical indicators. It lacks alternative data sources like economic indicators, detailed financial news, and sentiment analysis, which are becoming increasingly important for more comprehensive financial analysis. Nonetheless, for users on a free plan, these drawbacks may be forgivable.
Alpha Vantage’s documentation is also commendable, featuring clear live examples and code snippets. Its layout is similar to Twelve Data's, with well-organized sections and highlighted APIs that are frequently used, making navigation easy and efficient.
All in all, Alpha Vantage is an excellent starting point for beginners. It provides all the necessary tools to grasp the basics of financial data analysis and offers one of the best free-tier plans available. For more advanced users, however, Alpha Vantage is likely best suited as a secondary option or a backup.
5. Finage
The final alternative on our list is Finage, a relatively new player in the market, but one that has quickly established itself as a solid platform.
Finage’s landing page is well-designed, clearly presenting all the necessary information and including coding examples to demonstrate how easy it is to use their APIs.
Their documentation is also well-executed, although not the absolute best, it meets the key requirements of good documentation. One particularly useful feature is the clear categorization of APIs, which makes it easier to find the right endpoint without much hassle.
However, there are two significant drawbacks to Finage. First is their pricing. Compared to the other alternatives on this list, Finage’s subscription plans are much more expensive, making it difficult for many users to justify the cost or even afford the service.
The second issue is the somewhat limited selection of API endpoints. While Finage covers all the essentials, it lacks some of the alternative data types, such as sentiment and economic data, which have become increasingly popular among traders looking for deeper insights. This limitation can be a disadvantage for users who rely on this kind of data to gain a market edge.
Overall, while Finage offers quality data and is a reliable Yahoo Finance API alternative, it may not be the best fit for those seeking an affordable option with a broader range of features.
Conclusion
For a long time, the Yahoo Finance API was the go-to choice for accessing a wide range of financial data and stock information. However, with its unexpected discontinuation, users were forced to seek out alternatives. This shift led to the discovery of several excellent options that often surpassed the functionality of Yahoo Finance API.
Many of these alternatives provide enhanced features, some offering far more useful data points than what was available previously. After reviewing the best options, EODHD APIs stood out as the top choice. With its broad range of features, extensive global coverage, and historical data spanning decades, EODHD proves to be the ideal replacement for the Yahoo Finance API.
Additionally, EODHD offers a unique API Marketplace where users can sell their financial products, earn revenue, and benefit from EODHD's established marketing platform.
With its comprehensive data coverage, fast customer support and innovative marketplace, EODHD sets a new standard as the most robust and versatile alternative to Yahoo Finance.