--- title: "AllRatesToday vs Currencylayer (2026): The Honest Comparison" description: "AllRatesToday vs Currencylayer in 2026 — real-time vs hourly updates, historical rates, base currency flexibility, HTTPS, CORS, and what each one costs." canonical: https://allratestoday.com/blog/allratestoday-vs-currencylayer/ source: AllRatesToday (https://allratestoday.com/) — Markdown mirror of the page above; index of all pages at https://allratestoday.com/llms.txt generated: 2026-10-24T18:58:58.398Z --- ![Financial data comparison](https://images.pexels.com/photos/5561913/pexels-photo-5561913.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=2&h=650&w=940) Currencylayer has been the default "cheap exchange rate API" recommendation since 2015. It still works. But the gap between what it offers and what a modern application needs has widened — especially around update frequency, HTTPS, base currency flexibility, and historical data. This article compares **AllRatesToday** and **Currencylayer** on the criteria developers actually evaluate before integrating an FX API: data freshness, free-tier limits, security posture, latency, and migration cost. ## TL;DR — Quick Comparison Table | Feature | AllRatesToday | Currencylayer | | --- | --- | --- | | Update frequency (free tier) | Real-time (60s) | Hourly | | Data source | institutional foreign exchange market data | Apilayer aggregated feeds | | HTTPS on free tier | Yes | No (paid only) | | Base currency on free tier | Any | USD only | | Historical rates on free tier | No (paid plans from €4.99/mo) | Paid only | | Currencies covered | 160+ fiat + metals | 168+ fiat + metals | | CORS support | Browser: keyless endpoints; keyed API server-side | Not advertised | | Authentication | Bearer token (header) | access_key (query string) | | Free tier | Free, no card | Free with constraints | ## Update Frequency: Real-Time vs Hourly Currencylayer's free and Basic plans refresh rates **once per hour**. Real-time updates start at the Professional plan, which is a paid subscription. AllRatesToday refreshes every **60 seconds** on every plan, sourced from institutional foreign exchange market data. For checkouts, payment splits, trading dashboards, or anything that converts money in real time, hourly snapshots are too coarse — in volatile sessions a major pair can move 0.5–1% inside a single hour, which lands directly in your margin. Winner: AllRatesToday. Hourly updates in 2026 belong to a different era of FX consumption. ## HTTPS: Why Currencylayer's Free Tier Breaks the Browser Currencylayer serves rates over **HTTP only** on the free plan; HTTPS is reserved for paid tiers. If your app is on HTTPS (which it must be in 2026), the browser blocks the request as mixed content. You either upgrade or proxy the call through your backend. AllRatesToday is HTTPS-only on every plan. There's no mixed-content gotcha and no proxy required. Winner: AllRatesToday. Paywalled HTTPS is a 2014-era trade-off that hasn't aged. ## Base Currency: USD-Only Forces Cross-Rate Math Currencylayer's free tier locks the base currency to **USD**. To get GBP-based rates, you fetch USD rates and divide — that arithmetic is straightforward but introduces rounding when chained, and produces three-digit rate strings that need careful handling at display time. AllRatesToday accepts any base currency on any plan. Pass `?source=GBP` and the API returns rates already keyed to GBP. ``` # AllRatesToday — any base, no math curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/rates?source=GBP&target=EUR,USD" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" ``` Winner: AllRatesToday. USD-base on Currencylayer is fine for US-only products; everywhere else it's friction. ## Historical Rates: Free vs Behind a Paywall Historical rates — the ability to query a specific date in the past — are needed for accounting, invoice reconciliation, P&L conversion, and any analytics that touches past periods. Currencylayer charges for them; the free tier returns latest only. AllRatesToday also keeps historical rates on paid plans, starting at €4.99/month. Paid plans get daily market rates up to a year back, plus central-bank archives that go back decades: ``` curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/historical-rates?source=USD&target=EUR&period=30d" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" ``` Winner: Effectively a tie on access, since both put history on paid plans. AllRatesToday adds decades of official central-bank archives on the same key. ## Currency Coverage Currencylayer covers 168 fiat currencies plus 4 precious metals. AllRatesToday covers 160+ fiat plus precious metals. For everyday use cases (USD/EUR/GBP/JPY/major emerging-market pairs), both are equivalent. The 8-currency gap matters only for exotic pairs. Winner: Effectively a tie. Currencylayer has a slight edge for exotic-pair coverage. ## Authentication and DX Currencylayer authenticates via an `access_key` query parameter: ``` http://api.currencylayer.com/live?access_key=YOUR_KEY¤cies=EUR,GBP&source=USD ``` Putting the API key in the URL means it appears in browser history, server logs, and CDN access logs. AllRatesToday uses a standard `Authorization: Bearer` header: ``` curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/rates?source=USD&target=EUR,GBP" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY" ``` Winner: AllRatesToday. Header auth is the post-2018 default for a reason. ## Migrating from Currencylayer to AllRatesToday The two APIs have similar endpoint shapes. A migration usually takes under an hour: 1. Replace `api.currencylayer.com/live` with `allratestoday.com/api/v1/rates`. 2. Move the `access_key` from query string to `Authorization: Bearer` header. 3. Keep `source` as the base currency, and use `target` instead of `currencies` for the target list. 4. Replace the `quotes` object (e.g. `USDEUR`) with the returned array of rows, one per target (`{ rate, source, target, time }`). ## When Currencylayer Still Wins Currencylayer is the right choice if: - You're already on a paid Apilayer subscription and consolidate billing matters. - You only need USD-base rates and hourly updates are sufficient (display-only widgets, end-of-day reporting). - You need exotic-pair coverage that's outside AllRatesToday's 160 currencies. ## The Bottom Line For developers in 2026, AllRatesToday is the better default: - Real-time (60s) updates on the free tier. - Historical rates from €4.99/month, plus decades of central-bank archives. - Any base currency and HTTPS on every plan, plus keyless endpoints for browser use. - Header-based authentication (no keys in URLs). Currencylayer remains viable inside the Apilayer ecosystem; outside of it the limitations stack up. ## FAQ ### Is Currencylayer still a good choice in 2026? Reliable, but constrained: hourly updates on the free tier, USD-base lock on lower plans, HTTPS paywalled, historical rates paywalled. ### Why pick AllRatesToday over Currencylayer? Real-time (60-second) updates, any base currency and HTTPS on every plan, keyless endpoints for browser use, historical rates from €4.99/month plus decades of central-bank archives, and mid-market rates aggregated from institutional foreign exchange market data. ### Does Currencylayer support real-time exchange rates? Real-time requires Professional or Enterprise. Free and Basic refresh hourly. ### Can I use Currencylayer from the browser? HTTPS is paid-only on the free tier and CORS is not advertised — browser calls fail mixed-content checks. AllRatesToday is HTTPS on every plan; its keyless endpoints (official rates, IP-to-currency, symbols) allow browser calls, and the keyed API is meant to be called from your server so your key stays private. ### How do I migrate from Currencylayer to AllRatesToday? Point requests at `https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/rates`, move the API key from query string to `Authorization: Bearer` header, pass `target` instead of `currencies`, and read the array of rows (`rate`, `source`, `target`, `time`) instead of `quotes`. Ready to switch? ``` npm install @allratestoday/sdk ``` ## Switch in Under an Hour Real-time rates, any base currency, HTTPS on every plan. No card. [Get Your Free API Key](https://allratestoday.com/register) ## Related Articles - [How Much Is Currencylayer API?](https://allratestoday.com/blog/how-much-is-currencylayer-api/) - [AllRatesToday vs Fixer, XE, ExchangeRate-API](https://allratestoday.com/blog/allratestoday-vs-fixer-xe-exchangerate-api/) - [Fixer Alternative](https://allratestoday.com/compare/fixer-alternative/) - [Best Exchange Rate APIs](https://allratestoday.com/best/best-exchange-rate-api/)