Narwhal API
Official national economics with published request plans
Trading Economics vs FRED API
Trading Economics combines international indicators, forecasts and a calendar with consensus and importance. FRED offers free access to mostly US series and ALFRED revision vintages. Narwhal is a third option for official national economics and scheduled releases without consensus or forecasts.
Decision
Choose Trading Economics for forecasts, consensus and calendar importance across 196 countries. Choose FRED for US series and revision vintages. Choose Narwhal as a third option for official national series, actual release values and shared REST and MCP access.
Provider shortlist
Narwhal does not offer forecasts, consensus, importance ratings or revision vintages. Narwhal API is owned and operated by Nusantara Ventures, LLC.
Trading Economics
International forecasts and calendars with consensus
FRED
US series, free access and revision vintages
Compare the options
Best fit is not feature parity. Check the evidence and limitation together.
| Provider | Best for | Evidence checked | Important limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Narwhal API | Official national economics with published request plans | Economics covers 36 countries and 20 operations. The release calendar includes scheduled releases and actual values. REST and hosted MCP share one quota. | No forecasts, consensus, importance ratings, policy-rate series or revision vintages. |
| Trading Economics | International forecasts and calendars with consensus | Covers 196 countries with indicators, calendars, markets and forecasts. Calendar fields include actual, previous, consensus, proprietary forecast and importance. | No ongoing free tier. Standard costs $199 a month for 500 requests and one user. |
| FRED | US series, free access and revision vintages | More than 800,000 series from over 100 sources, ALFRED revision vintages and an official five-tool MCP connector are available. | Mostly US coverage, with international series accessed individually. Commercial use has additional restrictions and may require separate copyright permission. |
Choose by requirement
Decide whether forecasts matter
Trading Economics includes consensus, proprietary forecasts and calendar importance. Narwhal publishes scheduled releases and actual values, without those fields.
Compare access and cost
FRED access is free, subject to its terms. Trading Economics Standard costs $199 monthly for 500 requests. Narwhal Free allows commercial apps and 5,000 shared monthly requests.
Check revision needs
FRED's ALFRED supplies revision vintages. Narwhal replaces provisional figures with accepted official revisions and returns the current accepted series.
Sources and review date
Each detailed provider page lists the first-party documentation used, its evidence boundaries, and its review date.
Reviewed: