I built a free alternative to Bloomberg's data API with 490+ economic indicators

#showdev #api #opensource #webdev

I'm an economist who got tired of paying for Bloomberg Terminal access just to look up GDP data. So I built Statistics of the World — a free platform with 490+ economic indicators for 218 countries, with a free REST API.

The Problem

If you've ever tried to programmatically access global economic data, you know the pain:

Bloomberg Terminal: $24,000/year
Refinitiv/LSEG: $22,000/year
FRED API: Free but US-only
World Bank API: Free but slow, limited indicators, XML responses
IMF API: Exists but documentation is... an experience

I wanted one place where I could curl GDP, inflation, trade data, stock prices, and commodity prices — for any country — without paying thousands or parsing XML.

What I Built

Statistics of the World aggregates data from 6 sources into a single REST API:

IMF — World Economic Outlook, International Financial Statistics
World Bank — World Development Indicators (490+ indicators)
FRED — US economic data
Yahoo Finance — Real-time stock quotes, commodities, crypto
ECB — Exchange rates
Alpha Vantage — Market data

Quick API Examples

# GDP for all countries
curl https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/indicators/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD

# All indicators for Canada
curl https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/countries/CAN

# Live market quotes
curl https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/markets/quotes

# Search for any indicator
curl https://statisticsoftheworld.com/api/v2/search?q=unemployment

The free tier gives you 100 requests/day — enough for most research and side projects.

Tech Stack

Next.js 16 with React 19
Supabase (PostgreSQL) for the database
Python ETL pipeline — 49 cron jobs pulling data from all sources
Coolify on a $5.59/mo Hetzner VPS (replaced $45/mo Vercel + GitHub Actions)
Stripe for paid API tiers

Beyond the API

The site also has interactive features that I haven't seen elsewhere in one place:

Heatmap: Compare any indicator across all countries visually
Scatter plots: Plot any two indicators against each other (GDP vs. life expectancy, etc.)
Country comparisons: Side-by-side economic profiles
Economic calendar: Upcoming data releases with AI-powered actuals
Credit ratings: Sovereign ratings from all major agencies
Prediction markets: Polymarket integration for economic events
MCP endpoint: For AI agents that need economic context