Forex Feed vs Open Exchange Rates
Open Exchange Rates is a veteran of the space with wide currency coverage and a well-known JSON format. The comparison usually comes down to how fresh you need rates, how deep you need history, and what each tier costs for those two things.
What Forex Feed brings
20-second refresh at $50/month
Forex Feed's Unlimited plan serves rates refreshed every 20 seconds with unlimited fair-use requests for a flat $50/month. Sub-minute freshness is typically an enterprise-tier feature elsewhere — check what your shortlist charges for it.
10 years of history with real OHLC
Every plan queries the same 10-year daily archive (window depth varies by plan), and USD pairs include true open/high/low computed from intraday snapshots — not candles synthesized from closes.
An unhappy path you can program against
One JSON envelope, machine-readable error codes, Retry-After headers, and a /quota endpoint that works even when your quota is exhausted. Compare error-handling docs before you choose any rate API — it's where integrations live or die.
Forex Feed at a glance
| Rate freshness | 20 seconds (Unlimited) · 5 min (Developer) · daily (Free) |
| Historical depth | ~10 years daily, back to July 2016 |
| OHLC candles | Yes — real intraday aggregates on USD pairs |
| Pricing model | Flat plans: $0 / $19 / $50 per month |
| Top-tier requests | Unlimited (fair use, 1,000/min) |
| Usage observability | /quota endpoint, free to call, works when exhausted |
| Error handling | One envelope, machine-readable codes, Retry-After |
Open Exchange Rates's current pricing, limits, and freshness are listed on their site — plans change often enough that a hard-coded table here would mislead you within months. Compare the two side by side for your volume.
Where Open Exchange Rates may fit better
- • OXR covers 200 or so currencies including many exotics; Forex Feed deliberately covers the ~20 most-integrated currencies.
- • OXR has been operating since 2011 with a long reliability track record.
The fastest way to compare: run both
A free key takes 30 seconds — quickstart · other comparisons: Fixer · ExchangeRate-API · currencyapi.com