Databento

Databento is a modern market data platform providing high-quality, normalized financial data across asset classes. It focuses on simplicity — pay per gigabyte of data consumed rather than fixed subscriptions. Databento covers US equities, futures, options, and crypto with nanosecond precision. Unlike traditional data vendors that lock you into expensive monthly contracts, Databento lets you download exactly what you need and pay only for what you use, making it ideal for backtesting, research, and live trading workflows.

• Pay-per-use billing: charged per GB of data consumed, no monthly minimums or seat-based fees
• Nanosecond precision: timestamps with nanosecond granularity for capturing fast market movements and order book dynamics
• Normalized schemas: consistent data format across equities, futures, options, and crypto eliminates format translation overhead
• Live streaming: real-time data delivery via TCP or WebSocket for live trading and paper trading scenarios
• Historical data depth: tick-level data, MBO (market by order), OHLCV, and trade records spanning over a decade for equities
• Multi-asset coverage: equities, futures, options, and crypto all available through a single normalized interface
• Client libraries: official SDKs in Python, C++, and Rust for seamless integration into trading systems
• Fast downloads: optimized data compression and delivery reduces time to backtest

US Equities: all major exchanges including NYSE, NASDAQ, and regional exchanges. Derivatives: CME Group futures (ES, NQ, GC, CL, etc.), ICE futures (cotton, coffee, sugar), and equity options chains. Crypto: major exchanges including Coinbase, Kraken, Binance with spot and perpetual futures. Historical depth: equities and options from 2010+, crypto from 2017+, with daily updates for live data.

Day traders use Databento to backtest scalping and intraday momentum strategies on high-frequency data without paying enterprise licensing fees. Swing traders download weekly or monthly datasets for mean reversion and trend-following backtests across multiple symbols. Quants and researchers leverage nanosecond-precision data and order book snapshots (MBO) to research market microstructure, latency effects, and fill quality. Systematic traders integrate Databento live feeds into StratBase.ai backtests to validate strategy performance on realistic market conditions. Options traders use normalized options chain data to backtest volatility spreads and earnings-event strategies. Crypto traders access spot and derivatives data for testing algorithmic trading strategies across multiple exchanges and trading pairs.

Backtesting intraday scalping: Download 5-minute or tick-level data for ES (S&P 500 futures) for the past 2 years, run 10,000+ backtest variations in StratBase.ai, and pay only for the GB downloaded—typically under $50. Traditional vendors would charge $500+ monthly.

Testing options income strategies: Pull historical options chains for SPY, QQQ, and IWM at daily intervals. Backtest covered calls, cash-secured puts, and iron condors without downloading unnecessary data; pay only for what you use.

Live paper trading validation: Stream live equities or futures data via Databento WebSocket while running a StratBase.ai live backtest in parallel. Compare simulated fills against actual market fills to measure slippage and adjust strategy parameters.

Multi-timeframe crypto strategy development: Download hourly and daily OHLCV data for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana from multiple exchanges. Test arbitrage detection and mean reversion strategies across exchange pairs with nanosecond precision for order timing analysis.

Micro-cap and penny stock scanning: Sample lower-liquidity symbols without licensing entire market data feeds. Download tick data for specific stocks to backtest volume breakouts or support-resistance bounces, paying per-GB instead of per-symbol licensing.

Research market microstructure: Use MBO (market by order) data to analyze order book depth, bid-ask spread dynamics, and hidden order detection. Quantify market impact and design strategies that minimize adverse selection costs.

Databento integrates seamlessly with StratBase.ai by providing clean, normalized data that eliminates preprocessing overhead. Data ingestion: export Databento datasets in CSV or JSON and upload directly to StratBase.ai for immediate backtesting without data cleaning or format conversion. Cost efficiency: pay only for the data you backtest; no enterprise vendor lock-in or minimum commitments. Precision matching: nanosecond timestamps from Databento align with StratBase.ai's millisecond-level execution simulation, producing realistic fill prices and slippage estimates. Live integration: stream live data from Databento into StratBase.ai live backtest mode to validate strategy performance in real-time, detect regime changes, and measure strategy drift. Multi-asset workflows: backtest a single strategy across equities, futures, and crypto using identical data schemas, then deploy the best-performing version live. Research velocity: rapidly iterate on strategy hypotheses by downloading fresh data, backtesting in StratBase.ai, refining logic, and rerunning—all with transparent, predictable costs.

| Feature | Details | |---------|---------| | Base URL | https://hist.databento.com (historical), WebSocket and TCP endpoints for live | | Authentication | API key via HTTP header (historical) or session auth (live streaming) | | Data formats | DBN (binary, compressed), CSV, JSON for flexibility | | SDKs | Python (databento), C++, Rust for direct integration | | Timestamp precision | Nanosecond (1 billionth of a second) for tick-level accuracy | | Latency | <1ms for live streaming, batch historical downloads optimized for speed |

• Historical data: from $0.01/GB for bulk downloads; typical backtest datasets cost $5–$50 depending on date range and symbol count
• Live data: subscription based on underlying exchange fees plus Databento processing markup; typically 10–20% above raw exchange costs
• No monthly minimums: download data on-demand without recurring billing or unused-service charges
• Free tier: sample datasets and limited API access available for testing and strategy prototyping
• Volume discounts: custom pricing for high-volume traders and institutional users

1. Sign up at databento.com and verify email
2. Generate API key in account settings
3. Install Python client: pip install databento
4. Browse the catalog to identify datasets (equities, futures, crypto, options chains)
5. Download historical data for your backtest date range and symbols
6. Export as CSV/JSON and upload to StratBase.ai, or use Databento's Python SDK to programmatically fetch data into your research environment
7. Run backtests in StratBase.ai and iterate based on results

• Documentation – complete API reference, data schemas, and tutorials
• Pricing Calculator – estimate costs for your backtest scope
• Python SDK – open-source client library with examples
• Data Catalog – browse available symbols, exchanges, and historical date ranges
• Status Page – check live feed uptime and API health