AllRatesToday vs Currencylayer: The 2026 Honest Comparison

Currencylayer has been the default "cheap exchange rate API" recommendation since 2015. It still works. But the gap between what it offers and what a modern application needs has widened — especially around update frequency, HTTPS, base currency flexibility, and historical data.

This article compares AllRatesToday and Currencylayer on the criteria developers actually evaluate before integrating an FX API: data freshness, free-tier limits, security posture, latency, and migration cost.

TL;DR — Quick Comparison Table

Update Frequency: Real-Time vs Hourly

Currencylayer's free and Basic plans refresh rates once per hour. Real-time updates start at the Professional plan, which is a paid subscription.

AllRatesToday refreshes every 60 seconds on every plan, sourced from institutional foreign exchange market data. For checkouts, payment splits, trading dashboards, or anything that converts money in real time, hourly snapshots are too coarse — in volatile sessions a major pair can move 0.5–1% inside a single hour, which lands directly in your margin.

HTTPS: Why Currencylayer's Free Tier Breaks the Browser

Currencylayer serves rates over HTTP only on the free plan; HTTPS is reserved for paid tiers. If your app is on HTTPS (which it must be in 2026), the browser blocks the request as mixed content. You either upgrade or proxy the call through your backend.

AllRatesToday is HTTPS-only on every plan. There's no mixed-content gotcha and no proxy required.

Base Currency: USD-Only Forces Cross-Rate Math

Currencylayer's free tier locks the base currency to USD. To get GBP-based rates, you fetch USD rates and divide — that arithmetic is straightforward but introduces rounding when chained, and produces three-digit rate strings that need careful handling at display time.

AllRatesToday accepts any base currency on any plan. Pass ?source=GBP and the API returns rates already keyed to GBP.

# AllRatesToday — any base, no math
curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/rates?source=GBP&target=EUR,USD" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY"

Historical Rates: Free vs Behind a Paywall

Historical rates — the ability to query a specific date in the past — are needed for accounting, invoice reconciliation, P&L conversion, and any analytics that touches past periods. Currencylayer charges for them; the free tier returns latest only.

AllRatesToday also keeps historical rates on paid plans, starting at €4.99/month. Paid plans get daily market rates up to a year back, plus central-bank archives that go back decades:

curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/historical-rates?source=USD&target=EUR&period=30d" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY"

Currency Coverage

Currencylayer covers 168 fiat currencies plus 4 precious metals. AllRatesToday covers 160+ fiat plus precious metals. For everyday use cases (USD/EUR/GBP/JPY/major emerging-market pairs), both are equivalent. The 8-currency gap matters only for exotic pairs.

Authentication and DX

Currencylayer authenticates via an access_key query parameter:

http://api.currencylayer.com/live?access_key=YOUR_KEY&currencies=EUR,GBP&source=USD

Putting the API key in the URL means it appears in browser history, server logs, and CDN access logs. AllRatesToday uses a standard Authorization: Bearer header:

curl "https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/rates?source=USD&target=EUR,GBP" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY"

Migrating from Currencylayer to AllRatesToday

The two APIs have similar endpoint shapes. A migration usually takes under an hour:

1. Replace api.currencylayer.com/live with allratestoday.com/api/v1/rates.
2. Move the access_key from query string to Authorization: Bearer header.
3. Keep source as the base currency, and use target instead of currencies for the target list.
4. Replace the quotes object (e.g. USDEUR) with the returned array of rows, one per target ({ rate, source, target, time }).

When Currencylayer Still Wins

Currencylayer is the right choice if:

• You're already on a paid Apilayer subscription and consolidate billing matters.
• You only need USD-base rates and hourly updates are sufficient (display-only widgets, end-of-day reporting).
• You need exotic-pair coverage that's outside AllRatesToday's 160 currencies.

The Bottom Line

For developers in 2026, AllRatesToday is the better default:

• Real-time (60s) updates on the free tier.
• Historical rates from €4.99/month, plus decades of central-bank archives.
• Any base currency and HTTPS on every plan, plus keyless endpoints for browser use.
• Header-based authentication (no keys in URLs).

Currencylayer remains viable inside the Apilayer ecosystem; outside of it the limitations stack up.

FAQ

Is Currencylayer still a good choice in 2026?

Reliable, but constrained: hourly updates on the free tier, USD-base lock on lower plans, HTTPS paywalled, historical rates paywalled.

Why pick AllRatesToday over Currencylayer?

Real-time (60-second) updates, any base currency and HTTPS on every plan, keyless endpoints for browser use, historical rates from €4.99/month plus decades of central-bank archives, and mid-market rates aggregated from institutional foreign exchange market data.

Does Currencylayer support real-time exchange rates?

Real-time requires Professional or Enterprise. Free and Basic refresh hourly.

Can I use Currencylayer from the browser?

HTTPS is paid-only on the free tier and CORS is not advertised — browser calls fail mixed-content checks. AllRatesToday is HTTPS on every plan; its keyless endpoints (official rates, IP-to-currency, symbols) allow browser calls, and the keyed API is meant to be called from your server so your key stays private.

How do I migrate from Currencylayer to AllRatesToday?

Point requests at https://allratestoday.com/api/v1/rates, move the API key from query string to Authorization: Bearer header, pass target instead of currencies, and read the array of rows (rate, source, target, time) instead of quotes.

npm install @allratestoday/sdk