Provider shortlist
Tool counts and auth come from each vendor's own docs, read on 3 November 2026. Most hosted tool lists sit behind sign-in, so those rival counts rest on vendor docs. Narwhal's 80 and Alpha Vantage's 133 come from live tools list calls. Narwhal API is owned and operated by Nusantara Ventures, LLC.
Narwhal API
One hosted endpoint for economics, FX, calendars, predictions and filings, on the REST key.
Alpha Vantage
Technical indicators and US economic series, with a local install option.
EODHD
Hosted or local use, 72 tools, and economic events that carry forecasts.
Finnhub
70 tools spanning analyst estimates, filings, calendars and economic data.
Trading Economics
46 tools with calendar, forecast and indicator access for macro work.
Financial Modeling Prep
A 27-tool server on an existing FMP key, at no separate fee.
Massive (formerly Polygon.io)
An agent that finds endpoints itself through 3 tools, with an optional self-host.
Compare the options
Best fit is not feature parity. Check the evidence and limitation together.
| Provider | Best for | Evidence checked | Important limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Narwhal API | One hosted endpoint for economics, FX, calendars, predictions and filings, on the REST key. | Endpoint api.narwhalapi.com/mcp over Streamable HTTP with a bearer header. 80 tools in the live tools list. Server card at /.well-known/mcp.json. Free is 5,000 calls a month, shared with REST. | Free shows the previous-day close for FX and prediction odds. No consensus forecasts and no Tokyo stock listings. |
| Alpha Vantage | Technical indicators and US economic series, with a local install option. | Official hosted server (OAuth page takes your API key) and a local uvx install. A live tools list returned 133 tools with output schemas; the docs table lists 120. Free key: 25 requests a day. | Economic tools are US only, and there is no economic calendar tool. Quota is the key's quota. Premium starts at $49.99 a month for 75 requests a minute. |
| EODHD | Hosted or local use, 72 tools, and economic events that carry forecasts. | Official and open source: hosted, or local over stdio, SSE or streamable HTTP. 72 read-only tools, 100+ documentation resources and 3 prompts. Included on Free, which allows 20 calls a day plus 500 welcome-bonus calls. | Version 1 puts the key in the URL; version 2 uses OAuth 2.1. Economic data follows the plan: Fundamentals ($59.99 a month) or All-In-One ($99.99). |
| Finnhub | 70 tools spanning analyst estimates, filings, calendars and economic data. | Official hosted server over Streamable HTTP, signed in by OAuth with your Finnhub account. MCP calls count against the same limits as the API key. Free is 60 calls a minute. | No local install and no holiday tool. Each dataset follows your plan: separate data plans start near $50 a month, and All-In-One is $3,500 a month billed annually. |
| Trading Economics | 46 tools with calendar, forecast and indicator access for macro work. | Official hosted server, OAuth sign-in or API key. Tools: 9 indicators, 5 calendar, 3 forecasts, 15 markets, 8 financials, 4 countries and ratings, 1 news, 1 search. Standard is $199 a month. | No free tier: a one-week trial limited to 100 data requests. No holiday tool. Whether the calendar tools work where the REST calendar is excluded was not confirmed. |
| Financial Modeling Prep | A 27-tool server on an existing FMP key, at no separate fee. | Official hosted server with the key in the URL. Its changelog records the tool count cut to 27 in March, organized by dataset. Each request counts toward plan limits; Free is 250 calls a day. | Tool names are not shown on any page read, and the economics tools are unconfirmed. Self-serve plans bar business use. |
| Massive (formerly Polygon.io) | An agent that finds endpoints itself through 3 tools, with an optional self-host. | Hosted at mcp.massive.com with OAuth. The self-hosted README lists search_endpoints, call_api and query_data. Economy data and market holidays are reachable. Free Basic is 5 calls a minute, end of day. | The self-hosted server is marked experimental, and the hosted tool count is not stated. Individual plans are for personal use. No economic calendar. |
| FRED | Free official FRED series through 5 tools, run by the St. Louis Fed. | Hosted at mcp.stlouisfed.org with OAuth through a separate connector account and no API key. Tools: search, metadata, observations, a download link and a graph of up to five series. | No release calendar tool and no holidays. MCP rate limits are not stated. Terms ban storing or caching FRED content in any database or cache. |
Choose by requirement
Hosted or local
Narwhal, FMP, Finnhub, Trading Economics and FRED document a hosted server only. Alpha Vantage adds a local install through uvx, EODHD a local server over stdio, SSE or streamable HTTP, and Massive a self-hosted server that its README marks experimental. Choose local when keys or traffic must stay on your own machine, and hosted when you want nothing to run on your side. Local servers need a runtime on the agent host, such as uv or Python.
How many tools
Alpha Vantage returned 133 in a live tools list, Narwhal 80, EODHD 72, Finnhub 70, Trading Economics 46, FMP 27, FRED 5 and Massive 3 on its self-hosted server. A long list takes more of the model's context window and gives it an exact tool to pick. Alpha Vantage's docs put 53 of its 120 documented tools in technical indicators, and its tools carry output schemas. The sheets give tool counts only, so test token cost on your own questions.
Free allowance
Narwhal Free is 5,000 requests a month, MCP included. Alpha Vantage gives 25 a day and lifts the cap for verified open-source or educational projects. EODHD gives 20 a day plus 500 welcome-bonus calls, FMP 250 a day (about 7,500 in 30 days, on a fixed list of free symbols), Finnhub 60 a minute and Massive 5 a minute with end-of-day data. FRED is free and states no MCP limits. Trading Economics has no free tier, only a one-week trial.
One quota for MCP and REST
Narwhal MCP and REST share one key and one quota, and each successful call counts once. Errors and rate-limit responses do not count, so an agent retrying a bad argument costs nothing. FMP and Finnhub also count MCP calls against normal limits, and Alpha Vantage's MCP uses the key's quota. EODHD charges failed lookups on its REST API. If an agent makes 20 calls per question, Narwhal Free covers 250 questions a month.
Economic data and calendars in MCP
Narwhal exposes economics tools for CPI, inflation, unemployment, labour force, GDP, trade, yield curves, policy rates, releases and the catalogue. EODHD has macro, economic events and four US Treasury tools, on a Fundamentals or All-In-One plan. Finnhub has economic calendar, code list and data tools. Trading Economics has five calendar tools. Alpha Vantage has 10 US series and no economic calendar, and FRED has series but no release calendar tool.
Holidays and market hours
Narwhal has calendar tools for holidays, the next holiday, a given date and Hijri conversion, across 37 countries. Massive reaches market holidays and status per asset class, and futures schedules. EODHD includes a holiday calendar inside a marketplace trading hours tool. Alpha Vantage offers only a market status tool. Finnhub, Trading Economics and FRED list none. Narwhal's holiday tools share the key and quota of its other tools.
REST fallback and agent memory
When no tool fits, call REST. Narwhal's REST uses the same key and quota, across 120 documented paths in its OpenAPI document. Massive's call_api tool reaches any REST endpoint, and FMP's MCP server accepts any FMP key, so an existing REST key carries over. FRED allows 120 REST requests a minute, but its terms bar storing or caching FRED content and use in developing or training LLMs, so keep it out of agent memory and vector stores.
Official or community servers
Every server compared here is operated by the data vendor. FRED's page calls its connector the only MCP server operated by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which makes any other FRED server third-party. Alpha Vantage's page shows Anthropic, OpenAI and Microsoft verified labels. Massive's docs say Polygon.io endpoints keep working under the new name. Check the publisher before you send a key to a community server, because a key placed in a third-party URL reaches that third party.
Each detailed provider page lists the first-party documentation used, its evidence boundaries, and its review date. Reviewed: