Compare · Amberdata
Amberdata alternative for Bitcoin on-chain data
Amberdata is an institutional multi-chain data platform, and since June 2026 it belongs to Kaiko. If you are re-evaluating that stack for Bitcoin work, here is what we measured on 3 September 2026.
Every figure below came from calling Amberdata ourselves, without a key.
REST API · SQL · dashboards · address history since the 2009 genesis block
BTC
Balance trail
informational on-chain data · not financial advice
Amberdata sells breadth to institutions: derivatives analytics, market data, DeFi and wallet intelligence across many chains, priced by quote. BitcoinDatabase sells depth on one chain: Bitcoin address, balance and history lookups back to the genesis block, plus SQL over the indexed chain, on a published plan you can start today without a sales call.
Side by side
Amberdata vs BitcoinDatabase, honestly
A fair look at what each does well. Both are capable tools. Here is where they differ.
| What matters | BitcoinDatabase | Amberdata |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership as of September 2026 | Independent, single product | Acquired by Kaiko, announced 2 June 2026 |
| Chain coverage | Bitcoin only, indexed deeply | Many chains plus centralized market and derivatives data |
| Derivatives and options analytics | None, we do not cover derivatives at all | A genuine strength, and the reason many desks buy it |
| Published price you can read | Yes, plans and limits are on the pricing page | No. The pricing page names Startup and Enterprise with no figures |
| Buy without talking to sales | Yes, self serve signup | Partly. A Buy Now link exists but the plan page renders no price in HTML |
| Auth failure shape | One consistent 401 with a JSON error body | Three different shapes: 401 text/plain, 403 Forbidden, 403 Missing Authentication Token |
| Can you smoke test a URL before you have a key | Yes, a wrong path returns 404 and a valid path returns 401 | No. A typo and a real route return the identical refusal |
| Query by Bitcoin address | Yes, address is a first class key across balances and history | Yes, addresses balances and transactions endpoints exist |
| Custom SQL over the chain | Yes, on Growth plans and above | Not exposed as user written SQL, the surface is REST, RPC and WebSocket |
| Cost basis attached to each output | Yes, every output row carries price_at_creation_usd | Price and chain data are separate products you join yourself |
| Institutional compliance posture | Not a regulated benchmark administrator | Stronger, and Kaiko adds regulated indices and reference rates |
| Best for | Bitcoin research, analytics, cohort and address level questions | Multi-asset desks that need derivatives, market data and DeFi in one contract |
Comparison reflects general, publicly understood positioning. Capabilities change, so check each product for the latest.
Why teams pick BitcoinDatabase
The fully indexed Bitcoin blockchain, queryable by REST, SQL and dashboards
Amberdata is now part of Kaiko, and that changes the evaluation
On 2 June 2026 Kaiko announced it had acquired Amberdata, and Amberdata publishes the announcement on its own blog, so this is not a rumor. Kaiko had already bought the on-chain infrastructure provider Cometh, and it describes the combined company as covering more than 200 exchanges, more than 20 blockchains and more than 20,000 digital assets. Amberdata itself was founded in 2017 and built its institutional business around derivatives analytics, on-chain data and market intelligence for hedge funds, asset managers, banks and exchanges. None of that is bad news for a buyer, but it is material. Roadmaps, endpoint lifecycles, contract terms and support ownership all tend to move in the two years after a data vendor is absorbed, and product overlap between two acquired stacks usually gets resolved rather than maintained forever. If you are signing a multi-year data agreement in 2026, ask which entity you are contracting with, which of the overlapping products is the long term one, and what the deprecation notice period is. Those are ordinary questions and a good vendor will answer them.
The pricing page loads, and still tells you nothing
This is worth measuring rather than assuming, because the screening and analytics vendors we have checked mostly do not even have a pricing page. Chainalysis, Elliptic, TRM Labs and Merkle Science all returned HTTP 404 on their pricing paths when we tested them on 29 August 2026. Amberdata is better: www.amberdata.io/pricing answered HTTP 200 on 3 September 2026. What it contains is another matter. It names exactly two plans, Startup, described as discounted pricing for pre-revenue startups and development projects, and Enterprise, aimed at financial institutions and established crypto natives. Neither carries a figure, a unit, a rate limit or a credit allowance. The call to action is Tell Us Your Needs and Request a Price Quote. There is one interesting exception. A banner reads that Amberdata market data is now available to purchase online, with a Buy Now link to intelligence.amberdata.com/plans. We followed it. It returns HTTP 200, but the document is a 515 byte JavaScript shell whose entire text content is the words Amberdata Market Intelligence, with no price anywhere in the HTML. So there may well be a real self serve price behind that app, but as of 3 September 2026 it is not readable without running the client side bundle, which means it is invisible to a procurement spreadsheet, to a search engine, and to an answer engine being asked what Amberdata costs.
One missing API key, three different refusals
We called Amberdata unauthenticated from a single US machine on 3 September 2026 and the auth surface is inconsistent in a way that will cost somebody an afternoon. Requests under web3api.io/api/v2/addresses/ returned HTTP 401 with content type text/plain and a body of exactly the word unauthorized. Requests to web3api.io/api/v2/market/tickers, the spot price pair endpoint, the blockchains blocks endpoint and api.amberdata.com paths returned HTTP 403 with a JSON body of message Forbidden. Requests to web3api.io/api/v2/tokens and web3api.io/api/v2/blockchains returned HTTP 403 with a JSON body of message Missing Authentication Token, which is the stock Amazon API Gateway response. All three mean the same thing, add credentials, but a client that switches on status code and content type will handle them as three unrelated failures. Whatever wrapper you write, collapse 401 and both flavors of 403 into one add credentials branch and do not let a retry loop treat any of them as transient.
You cannot map the surface without a key, and we tested that
We had a hypothesis worth checking, because it would have been genuinely useful: perhaps the 401 marks a route that exists and the 403 marks one that does not, which would let you validate URLs before you buy. It is wrong, and we would rather publish the failed test than a tidy claim. We requested the real balances latest endpoint and a deliberate typo of it, balances latestXX, for the same address. Both returned an identical HTTP 401 text/plain unauthorized. Then we requested a nonsense path, api/v2/nonsense-path-xyz, and a plausible real one, api/v2/tokens. Both returned an identical HTTP 403 Missing Authentication Token. The refusal is keyed on the URL prefix, not on whether the route is deployed. The practical consequence is simple and worth budgeting for: with Amberdata you cannot smoke test an endpoint path before you have credentials, and your integration cannot infer from a status code that it has the URL right. Add to that the fact that docs.amberdata.io returns HTTP 200 for every path we tried, including one we invented, because it is a single page application, so a 200 from the docs host is not evidence that a documented endpoint exists either. Plan on validating the whole path list during a trial rather than in advance.
Where Amberdata is the better buy, plainly
We would rather you pick correctly than pick us. If your questions span crypto derivatives, options surfaces, order book liquidity, DeFi lending protocols or dozens of chains, Amberdata is built for that and we are not. We cover exactly one chain and we have no derivatives data at all. If you need regulated reference rates, indices or benchmarks for a fund NAV or a structured product, Kaiko is a regulated benchmark administrator and that matters legally in a way that a research API does not. If you are a bank or an asset manager whose procurement process expects a named account team, an SLA and an annual contract, that is a normal way to buy and Amberdata serves it well. Where we are the better fit is narrower and deeper. If your question starts with a Bitcoin address, a cohort of addresses, a balance at a past height, a UTXO age distribution or a metric you want to rebuild and audit line by line, you want one chain indexed properly, SQL access, and a price already attached to each output rather than a separate market data product to join against. That is what we built, and you can start on it today without a call.
Good questions
Amberdata vs BitcoinDatabase, answered
Explore the data
The Bitcoin data you can query here
Bitcoin address balance history API
What an address held on any past date, not just what it holds now.
ExploreBitcoin active addresses
Daily active address counts, historical series and entity-adjusted numbers from the indexed chain.
ExploreBitcoin address lookup
Look up any Bitcoin address: balance, full history and UTXOs in one query.
ExploreBitcoin historical data API
Full-depth history: every block, transaction and metric back to 2009.
ExploreMore comparisons
See how BitcoinDatabase compares
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vs AlchemyAlchemy alternative
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vs QuickNodeQuickNode alternative
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vs HiroHiro alternative
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vs EllipticElliptic alternative
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vs Merkle ScienceMerkle Science alternative
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vs Coin MetricsCoin Metrics alternative
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vs CoinGlassCoinGlass alternative
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vs TatumTatum alternative
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vs NOWNodesNOWNodes alternative
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vs GetBlockGetBlock alternative
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vs ArkhamArkham Intelligence alternative
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vs SantimentSantiment alternative
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vs NansenNansen alternative
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vs AlliumAllium alternative
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vs FlipsideFlipside alternative
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vs ScorechainScorechain alternative
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Query the whole Bitcoin blockchain in one place
An address in, structured on-chain data out. BitcoinDatabase serves balances, UTXOs, transactions, entity labels and fund flows, with address history back to the 2009 genesis block over REST, and SQL and dashboards over the indexed chain. No node to run.
REST + SQL + dashboards · new blocks within seconds · informational on-chain data only