Who Alpha Vantage is
Alpha Vantage is a market data company based in Boston and backed by Y Combinator. Its APIs serve real-time and historical data for stocks, ETFs, indices, options, forex, commodities and crypto, with fundamentals, economic indicators and technical indicators alongside.
It reaches investors, researchers and developers through one REST API, spreadsheet add-ons and an MCP server for AI agents. One simple API across asset classes is why it is one of the stock and FX data providers our market data module connects to.
What it does in your platform
Market data
Supplies quotes and candles for US and global stocks, FX rates, and dividend and split data. The module asks for real-time or delayed US data according to your licence, and publishes one price per asset.
How the connection works
One connector in the market data module calls Alpha Vantage's REST API, where each request names a function and carries the API key. The key stays in the platform's secrets, and your apps read prices from the platform.
Symbols are matched
The module finds each instrument with Alpha Vantage's ticker search, and its listing status shows when a symbol is delisted.
Quotes on a schedule
Quotes are requested on a schedule, real-time or delayed according to your licence.
History fills the charts
Daily and intraday series back the candles, raw or adjusted for splits and dividends.
Corporate actions arrive
Dividend and split data feeds the module's corporate actions for stocks.
Prices are checked
Each quote is filtered and compared with your other sources before one price per asset goes out to apps and charts.
Failover takes over
If Alpha Vantage stops answering, prices fail over to the next source, and a stale price is flagged instead of shown.
Next to other providers
Alpha Vantage sits next to LSEG, Twelve Data and Nasdaq Data Link in the module. The module combines vendors, filters bad ticks, fails over when one stops answering and enforces real-time licences per user.
Your apps read prices from the module, so adding a vendor next to Alpha Vantage, or replacing it later, changes the configuration, not your apps.
When Alpha Vantage fits best
A strong fit when
- You want stock, FX and crypto data behind one simple REST API.
- You need history adjusted for splits and dividends, for charts and research.
- You want US prices real-time or delayed, chosen request by request.
Also worth a look
- A vendor with a WebSocket stream, such as Twelve Data, when prices must be pushed as they change.
- LSEG, when you need the coverage of a large institutional vendor.
How we get you live
The contract
We help you get your Alpha Vantage account and contract in place, including the real-time or delayed US data your users need.
The coverage
We map your instruments to Alpha Vantage symbols with you, and set which users see real-time and which see delayed prices.
The keys
The API key goes into your platform's secrets and nowhere else; no app or browser calls Alpha Vantage directly.
A full test run
Quotes, history and corporate actions run in staging against your instrument list before any user sees a price.
