Open Exchange Rates alternative: fxapi vs OXR

This comparison is for teams running on Open Exchange Rates (OXR) who want to check an Open Exchange Rates alternative, and for anyone choosing between the two for a new project. Open Exchange Rates has a generous 1,000-request free plan, 200+ currencies including alternative and digital currency rates, an Unlimited plan without request caps and a VIP tier with bid-ask, OHLC and 1-second updates. fxapi fits better if you need a non-USD base currency without paying, time series and conversion at a lower plan level, period averages for accounting, or 60-second updates under $35 a month.

fxapi vs Open Exchange Rates at a glance

Competitor information checked on October 8, 2026 from openexchangerates.org/signup, the free plan page and the OXR docs for latest.json, historical, time-series.json and convert. Plans change – verify on their site.

Where Open Exchange Rates is strong

• Bigger free quota. 1,000 requests per month on the free plan is more than fxapi’s 300. If you only need USD-based rates and hourly freshness, OXR’s free plan goes further.
• Unlimited requests. The Unlimited plan ($97/month) lists no request cap, which simplifies capacity planning for high-traffic apps.
• Alternative rates. The show_alternative flag adds alternative, black market and digital currency rates – useful for markets where official and street rates diverge.
• VIP data. For teams that need more than mid-market rates, OXR’s VIP tier lists 1-second updates, bid-ask and midpoint prices, OHLC and intraday history. fxapi does not offer bid/ask or OHLC.
• Annual discount. All OXR plans come with two months free on annual billing – the same structure fxapi uses.
• Simple, stable URLs. latest.json, historical/YYYY-MM-DD.json and currencies.json are easy to cache and to call from any language.

Where fxapi is different

Any base currency on every plan

OXR’s free plan is USD-only. On fxapi, base_currency=EUR (or GBP, CHF, BTC, XAU) works on Free, so European or Asian teams don’t have to compute cross rates client-side. More on base currencies and cross rates.

Time series and conversion at lower plan levels

On fxapi a full year of daily rates for 20 currencies is one request. /v1/range also supports week and month accuracy for long spans and hour, quarter_hour and minute accuracy for recent intraday data, with format=csv output.

Fluctuation and averages included

/v1/fluctuation returns start_rate, end_rate, change and change_pct for any period. /v1/average returns monthly, quarterly, yearly or total averages with min and max – ready for IAS 21 and ASC 830 income-statement translation. Both are on every plan, including Free.

60-second updates for $34.99

fxapi’s Professional plan refreshes every 60 seconds and includes 600,000 requests a month. Compare plans on the pricing page.

MCP for AI agents

The fxapi MCP server lets Claude, Cursor and other MCP clients call the rate endpoints as tools – see AI agents and LLMs.

Migrating from Open Exchange Rates to fxapi

Endpoint mapping

Response shape

OXR returns base, a UNIX timestamp and a flat rates object (rates.EUR). fxapi returns an ISO 8601 meta.last_updated_at and a data object keyed by currency code, where each entry has code and value (data.EUR.value). If you stored OXR’s timestamp alongside transactions, store last_updated_at instead – it’s already a UTC string.

Before and after

Open Exchange Rates, as documented:

curl "https://openexchangerates.org/api/latest.json?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID&symbols=EUR,GBP"

fxapi:

curl -G "https://api.fxapi.com/v1/latest" \
  -d base_currency=USD \
  -d currencies=EUR,GBP \
  -H "apikey: $FXAPI_KEY"

import os
import requests

resp = requests.get(
    "https://api.fxapi.com/v1/latest",
    params={"base_currency": "USD", "currencies": "EUR,GBP"},
    headers={"apikey": os.environ["FXAPI_KEY"]},
    timeout=10,
)
resp.raise_for_status()
body = resp.json()

# OXR-style {"EUR": ..., "GBP": ...} for existing code
rates = {code: item["value"] for code, item in body["data"].items()}
updated_at = body["meta"]["last_updated_at"]

fxapi signals errors with HTTP status codes – 401 (invalid key), 403 (endpoint not in plan), 422 (validation, with an errors object per parameter) and 429 (limit reached). More in the Python guide.

Verdict

Stay with Open Exchange Rates if a USD base and hourly updates are enough and you value the 1,000-request free plan, if you need unlimited requests on a flat fee, or if you need bid-ask and OHLC data from the VIP tier. Choose fxapi if you need a non-USD base without paying, conversion and time series at lower plan levels, fluctuation and IAS 21 averages included, or 60-second updates at $34.99 a month. The endpoint map above keeps a switch to a small, contained change – try it with a free fxapi key.

fxapi is a foreign exchange rates API by Everapi GmbH (Austria): live and historical rates for 190+ currencies, time series, conversion, fluctuation and period averages.

Frequently asked questions