The Ultimate Guide to News APIs

Written by diligentanalyzer | Published 2023/07/26
Tech Story Tags: api | news | api-integration | finance | software-development | nlp | ai-applications | api-gateway

TLDRThe best news APIs include Alpha Vantage, Xignite, QuoteMedia, Perigon, and Bloomberg. via the TL;DR App

News APIs are tremendously powerful in today's digital world. They empower developers to access and retrieve thousands of news articles daily to extract specific data, perform analysis, or integrate the content into their applications and websites. With the latest surge of large language models (LLMs) and Generative AI agents, access to high-quality structured training data has become incredibly important. This is where a news API can provide unique value. 
So which API should you use? Well, you’re in luck. There are an abundant number of news APIs on the market. Most providers pull articles from the same sources. A majority have the capability to query by keywords, dates, and specific sources, or offer the ability to retrieve basic information such as headlines, authors, and publication dates. 
So what separates the great APIs from the rest? Only a handful of news APIs on the market offer AI-powered value-added fields such as intelligent summarizations, sentiment scores, etc. The latter features are what set world-class APIs apart from merely “good” ones.
Some providers on this list even provide other financial data on top of their news APIs, allowing you to integrate insights from the latest digital content with real-time market data to configure sound investment decisions. 
By selecting the right data source, you can extract invaluable information and build products that leverage news content effectively.
In putting my list together, I considered four criteria:
  • Breath of news coverage by the API
  • Developer experience and ease of use
  • Accessibility to low budget users
  • AI/NLP integration

Here is my list of some of the most powerful news APIs available: 
1. Alpha Vantage
Alpha Vantage is a popular financial data provider focused on supplying affordable and easy-to-use APIs. Their Global News API offers access to live and historical market news from thousands of major outlets across the globe. Their product allows for industry and ticker-based querying, as well as article source and publish date. 
Their Global News API is just one of over a hundred endpoints available in their free plan, and can be combined with their core stock API and company fundamental data endpoints to provide a 360-degree view of the financial market and the broader economy.
Alpha Vantage’s API has a few AI-powered features such as GPT-based news summarization of articles, as well as sentiment analysis and relevancy scores built using advanced NLP systems. 
  • News API: Yes
  • AI-Powered: Yes
  • Access To Other Endpoints: Yes
  • How to get started for the budget-minded: Generous free tier
2. Xignite
Xignite is a leader in the financial market data industry as its APIs power multiple large fintech and investment firms. Their Financial News API delivers real-time and historical news content from over 200+ business and technology journals, aggregating over 1000+ RSS feeds. With Xignite you have access to features such as querying and filtering news articles based on keywords, date ranges, company tickers, and sectors.
Similar to Alpha Vantage and QuoteMedia on this list, Xignite offers plenty of other endpoints such as stocks, crypto, foreign exchange, and fundamental data, allowing you to transform insights pulled from global headlines into sound investment decisions. 
Xignite doesn’t tout any advanced AI-enriched fields, but there is a reason why they are so acclaimed. If you need access to well-sourced raw news data, Xignite is a great option. 
  • News API: Yes
  • AI-Powered: Unclear
  • Access To Other Endpoints: Yes (mostly financial data)
  • How to get started for the budget-minded: 7-day free trial
3. QuoteMedia
QuoteMedia is a reliable source of financial data services, and its News API is one of the best in the industry. Their simple and lightweight API aggregates news, press releases, and online content such as finance blogs, from over 300 sources, allowing you to pull news and headlines covering all aspects of the markets. You can query press releases and market commentary by symbol, sector, or by over 400 topic-based categories. Unfortunately, QuoteMedia doesn’t promote any intelligent core features.
Like Alpha Vantage and Xignite, QuoteMedia has dozens of other endpoints such as stock prices, SEC filings, and company fundamentals that you can integrate into your programs
  • News API: Yes
  • AI-Powered Features: Unclear
  • Access To Other Endpoints: Yes
  • How to get started for the budget-minded: contact sales
4. Perigon
Perigon launched just a few years ago, making it one of the newer products available, but that hasn’t stopped them from building a news API that is just as powerful as anyone else on the market. Their API delivers real-time news & events data from over 60,000 sources across the web. With Perigon you can pull an article's headline, publication date, author, URL, image, and in some cases, even the full article content. 
What sets Perigon apart is its AI-powered data enrichment. Their current toolset offers the ability to pull named entities in the article, as well as discussed topics, industry categories, article summaries, and sentiment scores. 
Unfortunately, Perigon’s News API is a standalone product, so if you’re looking to integrate with other financial data, you’ll need to look elsewhere. 
  • News API: Yes
  • AI-Powered: Yes
  • Access To Other Financial Data: No
  • How to get started for the budget-minded: contact sales
5. Bloomberg News API
Bloomberg is a behemoth in the financial data space. It’s a name almost everyone in the industry recognizes, so it goes without saying they are a very reputable source of information.  Their comprehensive Bloomberg API empowers users to access an extensive array of financial market information, ranging from real-time streaming news to historical data and in-depth analytics. This invaluable resource allows users to transform knowledge into profitable actions, offering insightful data from all corners of the globe.
With its user-friendly interface and global coverage, the Bloomberg API is a powerful tool for any individual or organization seeking to make informed decisions and stay ahead in the dynamic world of finance.
  • News API: Yes
  • AI-Powered: No / unclear
  • Access To Other Financial Data: Yes
  • How to get started for the budget-minded: request a demo
Conclusion
So which API should you use? It ultimately depends on your use case and what you’re looking to build. Each of the providers has its pros and cons, so please spend more time researching each API to gain a deeper comprehension of which best suit your requirements: 
  • Alpha Vantage is known for being one of the most accessible and popular financial data providers in the industry, and for good reason. Their news API is cutting-edge, offering an expansive set of AI-enriched fields, which can be combined with over a hundred other endpoints. This wide array of data access can give you a 360-degree view of the markets and economy. 
  • Xignite is one of the most trusted providers of financial data services, powering many notable fintech applications. Their easy-to-use API provides access to real-time and historical news content from over 200+ business and technology sector journals. Geared towards institutional clients, their data quality is exemplary. 
  • QuoteMedia is another great source for a vast array of financial data. Their news API pulls content from every crack of the financial world, aggregating news, press releases, and even financial blogs, from over 300 sources. With QuoteMedia you can pull in a company’s fundamentals alongside their latest press releases to make automated and informed decisions. 
  • Perigon is the new kid on the block but is packed with intelligent features. Access articles in realtime from over 60,000 sources across the web with the ability to contextualize the entities referenced and analyze the sentiment of the article. Bonus points for having easy-to-use documentation!
  • Bloomberg is one of the most notable companies in the financial data industry. You can feel confident you’ll be getting some highest quality data of any provider on this list. Their extensive API empowers users to access an vast array of financial market information, ranging from real-time streaming of news to historical data, and in-depth analytics.
Are there any other news API sources you have had a great experience with? Please let me know in the comment below!





Written by diligentanalyzer | Always on the hunt for treasure data sources for AI & ML
Published by HackerNoon on 2023/07/26