Skip to content
← Tools / Skills
ToolAlpaca/10 trustVerified
Alpaca logo

Alpaca

API-first, commission-free brokerage for stocks, ETFs, options, and crypto.

Visit official site →

About

Alpaca is a developer-first broker-dealer that exposes trading entirely through APIs: a Trading API for orders, a Market Data API for historical and real-time data, and a Broker API for embedding brokerage in your own apps.

Paper trading is free and uses the exact same API surface as live, which makes strategy testing painless, and U.S. equity trades carry no commission. It is a FINRA-member self-clearing broker. Market data beyond the free basic tier costs extra, and standard regulatory fees still apply.

What it can do

  • Commission-free U.S. stock and ETF trading API
  • Free paper trading identical to live
  • Market Data API (REST + WebSocket)
  • Broker API for embedded finance
  • Crypto and options trading

Setup

  1. Sign up free and generate API keys from the dashboard.
  2. Point your code at the paper trading endpoint.
  3. Build and test your strategy with identical live semantics.
  4. Fund a live account and switch the endpoint.
  5. Add market data upgrades if you need full SIP feeds.

Prerequisites

An Alpaca account; programming ability to use the REST/WebSocket APIs.

Use cases

automationcode

Works with

Generic APIAny agent (.md)

Trust score — 8/10

/10 trustVerified

Scored 8/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: FINRA-member self-clearing broker-dealer; powers stock trading for Kraken and Bybit; Paper trading uses identical API surface to live; Commission-free equities; regulatory fees and premium market-data tiers still apply. License: Brokerage; commission-free U.S. equities, market data Algo Trader Plus ~$99/mo..

How the trust score is built

Full methodology →
Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
9.0/10
Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
8.0/10
Openness · license + docs
6.0/10
Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
8.0/10
  • · FINRA-member self-clearing broker-dealer; powers stock trading for Kraken and Bybit
  • · Paper trading uses identical API surface to live
  • · Commission-free equities; regulatory fees and premium market-data tiers still apply

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.