--- title: "Frankfurter Alternative: AllRatesToday Currency API" description: "Frankfurter is a great free open-source official-rates API — its 2026 v2 even aggregates 80+ central banks. What it still lacks: real-time market rates, weekend data, tax-authority tables, Excel/CSV output, and support. Here is the honest comparison." canonical: https://allratestoday.com/compare/frankfurter-alternative/ source: AllRatesToday (https://allratestoday.com/) — Markdown mirror of the page above; index of all pages at https://allratestoday.com/llms.txt generated: 2026-10-06T19:34:37.264Z --- # Frankfurter Alternative: AllRatesToday Currency API Frankfurter is a great free open-source official-rates API — its 2026 v2 even aggregates 80+ central banks. What it still lacks: real-time market rates, weekend data, tax-authority tables, Excel/CSV output, and support. Here is the honest comparison. Let's start with credit where it's due: Frankfurter (frankfurter.dev) is one of the best free developer tools in the currency space — open source, keyless, well documented. Its classic v1 API serves the ECB's ~30-currency daily reference table, and in 2026 its v2 expanded into an aggregator of official rates from 80+ central banks. That's a genuinely impressive free dataset, and if daily official fixings are all you need, keep using it. What hasn't changed: every number Frankfurter serves is an official rate published at most once per working day. There are no real-time market rates, no weekend data, no tax-authority tables (HMRC, US Treasury), no CSV/Excel output, and — as a volunteer project — nobody on the hook when your invoicing job runs at month-end. That's where AllRatesToday picks up. ## At a glance | | AllRatesToday | Frankfurter | | --- | --- | --- | | Price | Free tier; paid from €4.99/mo | Free, open source | | Real-time market rates | Yes — 160+ currencies, every 60 seconds | No — official daily fixings only | | Official central-bank rates | 121 central banks | 80+ central banks (v2; v1 is ECB-only) | | Tax-authority rates (HMRC, US Treasury, BAZG) | Yes — dedicated tables | Not offered | | Weekend / holiday rates | Yes — market rates update continuously | No — last working day's fixing carries over | | Output formats | JSON, CSV, XML, XLSX + no-code downloads | JSON | | AI/agent tooling | MCP servers, SDKs (JS/Python/PHP/Rust/Go) | Community wrappers | | Support / SLA | Email support on paid plans; 99.99% availability target | Community; self-host for guarantees | | Price / key | Free tier; paid from €4.99/mo (open ECB endpoint keyless) | Free, keyless, open source | Pricing and feature details are based on each provider's public pages and may change. Check the vendor's site for the latest figures. ## When teams outgrow Frankfurter ### 1. You need live market rates, not yesterday's fixing Everything Frankfurter serves — v1 and v2 alike — is an official rate published at most once per working day. For a checkout, a pricing engine, a converter, or anything a user sees moments after the market moves, a daily fixing is the wrong number. AllRatesToday serves real-time mid-market rates for 160+ currencies from institutional interbank market data, updated every 60 seconds, seven days a week — alongside the official tables, on the same key. ### 2. One daily update isn't enough ECB reference rates are published once per working day, around 16:00 CET, and there is nothing on weekends or ECB holidays. For accounting that references the ECB rate, that's exactly right. For a checkout, a pricing engine, or anything user-facing, a Friday-afternoon rate shown on Sunday can be visibly off. AllRatesToday updates every 60 seconds, seven days a week. ### 3. Your filings cite a tax authority, not a central bank UK customs declarations cite **HMRC's monthly rate**; US government reporting cites the **US Treasury's quarterly table**; Swiss customs cite BAZG. Frankfurter's v2 aggregates central banks, but carries none of the tax-authority tables. AllRatesToday's [tax authority rates API](https://allratestoday.com/tax-authority-rates-api/) serves all three alongside the [121 central banks](https://allratestoday.com/central-bank-rates-api/), each under the institution's own publication date — with an in-force view that handles the US Treasury's between-quarter amendments correctly. ### 4. Spreadsheets, downloads, and formats beyond JSON Frankfurter speaks JSON. AllRatesToday's table endpoints also serve CSV, XML and real Excel workbooks, and the [bulk download page](https://allratestoday.com/download-central-bank-rates/) gives non-developers every source's tables with no code at all — the format finance teams actually ask for at month-end. ### 5. Support and an availability target without self-hosting Frankfurter's honest answer to uptime guarantees is "self-host it" — reasonable for an open-source project, but it makes reliability your ops problem. AllRatesToday runs on Cloudflare's global edge with a 99.99% availability target and email support on paid plans. ## Drop-in code example The request shape will feel familiar to Frankfurter users: ``` // Before — Frankfurter (official daily fixings) fetch('https://api.frankfurter.dev/v1/latest?base=USD&symbols=EUR,GBP') // After — AllRatesToday (real-time, 160+ currencies) fetch('https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/rates?source=USD&target=EUR,GBP', { headers: { Authorization: 'Bearer art_live_xxxxx' } }) .then(r => r.json()) .then(rows => console.log(rows)); // Still want the official ECB reference table? Keyless: fetch('https://allratestoday.com/api/open/central-bank/ecb') .then(r => r.json()) .then(console.log); ``` ## Honest pros and cons #### Where AllRatesToday wins - Real-time market rates (Frankfurter is daily official fixings only) - Weekend and holiday coverage via live market data - Tax-authority tables: HMRC, US Treasury, Swiss BAZG - CSV / XML / Excel output and a no-code download page - Official SDKs (JS, Python, PHP, Rust, Go) and MCP servers for AI agents - Support and an availability target without self-hosting #### Where Frankfurter may still suit you - Daily official fixings are exactly what your use case requires - You want a fully open-source stack you can self-host - Zero budget and zero sign-up are hard requirements Migration tip: if you're on Frankfurter for compliance reasons (ECB reference rates), don't switch to market rates — switch to our ECB central-bank endpoint, which serves the same official dataset. Use market rates only where a live number is actually what you want. ## FAQ ### Is Frankfurter bad? Should I stop using it? Not at all — it's an excellent free project, and its 2026 v2 made it a serious free aggregator of official central-bank rates. If daily official fixings cover your needs, stay. This page is for teams that need real-time market rates, tax-authority tables, spreadsheet formats, or someone accountable behind the feed. ### Does AllRatesToday serve the same ECB rates Frankfurter does? Yes. The ECB is one of the 121 central banks in our central-bank API, served under the ECB's own publication date — with a keyless open endpoint for the latest table. ### Is there a free tier? Yes — real-time rates with HTTPS, no credit card required. Historical data and commercial use start on the €4.99/mo plan; see [pricing](https://allratestoday.com/pricing/). ## Try it in two minutes Get a free API key — or hit the keyless ECB endpoint right now. [Get free API key](https://allratestoday.com/register) [See pricing](https://allratestoday.com/pricing) ## Compare with other providers [exchangerate.host alternativeIf your keyless integration broke](https://allratestoday.com/compare/exchangerate-host-alternative/) [exchangeratesapi.io alternativeThe other former free ECB API](https://allratestoday.com/compare/exchangeratesapi-io-alternative/) [Is the ECB exchange rate API free?How the ECB publishes its data](https://allratestoday.com/blog/is-the-ecb-exchange-rate-api-free/) [Best central bank rate APIsOfficial-rate landscape compared](https://allratestoday.com/blog/best-central-bank-exchange-rate-api-2026/) [Best free forex APIsRoundup of free options](https://allratestoday.com/best/best-free-forex-api/)