CryptoHFTData vs. Tardis.dev, Kaiko, and others: Free L2 order books, simple API, and what you trade off

TL;DR

CryptoHFTData offers L2 order book data for free (plus trades, liquidations, funding, open interest) with a super-simple API.

If you need deep historical coverage, tardis.dev has 6+ years of tick-level history; our history starts on July 1, 2025.

Enterprise vendors (Kaiko, CoinAPI, Amberdata, CryptoCompare/CoinDesk, etc.) cover many venues and products, but are generally paid and often lean on snapshots or tiered access for full granularity.

Who we’re comparing

This post focuses on vendors quants and researchers evaluate for high-frequency crypto data:

CryptoHFTData (us)
tardis.dev
Kaiko
CoinAPI
Amberdata
CryptoCompare / CoinDesk Data
Other specialists (e.g., smaller historical-data shops)

Competitor details below reflect what these companies publicly describe as of July 28, 2025. Always check their docs before purchasing.

What matters for HFT-grade data

When you’re reconstructing a limit order book (LOB) or testing microstructure models, the key dimensions are:

Granularity: L2/L3 updates vs. periodic snapshots; presence of sequence IDs to support deterministic replay.
History depth: How far back, for which instruments/venues.
Coverage: Exchanges, spot vs. perps/futures/options, and instrument counts.
Delivery & usability: Replay APIs vs. bulk files; timestamp precision; gap/dupe handling.
Cost & licensing: Pricing, rate limits, redistribution terms.

Side-by-side comparison

Feature	CryptoHFTData	tardis.dev	Enterprise Vendors
L2 Order Book Data	✅ Free	$$$ Paid	$$$ Paid
Trades & Liquidations	✅ Free	$$$ Paid	$$$ Paid
API Simplicity	✅ Super Simple	Complex	Enterprise Complex
History Depth	2025+	6+ years	Multi-year

The Bottom Line

Need L2 data now without breaking the bank? → CryptoHFTData
Need 6+ years of historical data? → tardis.dev
Enterprise with big budgets? → Kaiko, Amberdata, etc.

Where CryptoHFTData is different

1) Pricing that unlocks experimentation

L2 order book for free is rare. It removes the paywall that usually blocks students, indie researchers, and small teams from doing serious LOB work.

2) A frictionless API

Minimal auth, intuitive endpoints, and predictable pagination make it easy to script ingestion and iterate on research.
Low ceremony means quicker “from idea → model,” especially when running many symbols or venues in parallel.

3) All the essentials in one place

Besides L2 books, you can pull trades, liquidations, funding, and open interest, so you can augment microstructure features with derivatives signals without juggling vendors.

The biggest trade-off (and how to think about it)

History start: CryptoHFTData’s catalog begins on July 1, 2025.
Implication: For long-horizon backtests (multi-year), you either (a) accept a shorter history, (b) combine us with an archival vendor (e.g., tardis.dev), or (c) wait as our catalog grows day by day.

A practical strategy teams can use:

Prototype with CryptoHFTData (free L2, simple API) to validate feature engineering, LOB reconstruction, and model shape.
If/when you need multi-year robustness checks, re-run the finalized pipeline on a paid archival set (e.g., tardis.dev).
Go live using CryptoHFTData for ongoing data needs, keeping costs near zero.

Example: grabbing L2 with our API

# Download orderbook data file
curl "https://api.cryptohftdata.com/download?file=binance_spot/2025-07-16/20/BTCUSDT_orderbook.parquet.zst&api_key=your-api-key-here" \
  -o BTCUSDT_orderbook_20.parquet.zst

# Python SDK approach (recommended)
import cryptohftdata as chd

# Configure with your API key
chd.configure_client(api_key="<YOUR_API_KEY>")

# Get L2 orderbook data as DataFrame
df = chd.get_orderbook(
    symbol="BTCUSDT",
    exchange=chd.exchanges.BINANCE_FUTURES,
    start_date="2025-07-01",
    end_date="2025-07-02"
)

# Data is ready for analysis
print(f"Retrieved {len(df)} L2 orderbook updates")
print(df.head())

Pro tip: Use the Python SDK (pip install cryptohftdata) for the smoothest experience—it handles file downloads, decompression, and returns clean pandas DataFrames ready for analysis.

When to pick which vendor

Choose CryptoHFTData if…
- You want free L2 to prototype HFT strategies, do academic research, or run lean production systems.
- You value simple ingestion over heavy enterprise tooling.
- You’re comfortable with history beginning 2025-07-01 and growing forward.
Choose tardis.dev if…
- You need 6+ years of tick-level data today, especially for deterministic book replay and long-horizon backtests.
- You have budget for premium archival datasets and replay infrastructure.
Consider enterprise incumbents if…
- You need the broadest exchange/product coverage, contractual SLAs, or integration into an existing enterprise data stack.
- Your use case depends more on snapshots/metrics than on reconstructing every tick.

Roadmap & commitment

History growth: Every day extends the available window beyond 2025-07-01.
API ergonomics: We’ll keep docs and examples ruthlessly simple.
Quality signals: Where possible, we’ll expose fields (e.g., sequence IDs, gap flags) to support robust LOB reconstruction.

Methodology & disclosures

This post summarizes publicly stated characteristics of each vendor as of July 28, 2025.
Vendor features and pricing change—verify details in their docs before you commit.
We’re obviously biased; we built CryptoHFTData to make high-frequency research more accessible. If you spot anything outdated, let us know and we’ll update this page.