VOL. XCIV, NO. 247

★ BEST INVESTING TOOLS COMPARISON ★

NO ADVICE

Tuesday, January 6, 2026

Tool Comparison

FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) vs Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) comparison

Compare pricing, supported platforms, categories, and standout capabilities to decide which tool fits your workflow.

FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) logo

FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)

fred.stlouisfed.org

PricingFree
PlatformsWeb, Mobile, API
Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) logo

Wayback Machine (Internet Archive)

web.archive.org

PricingFree
PlatformsWeb, API, Mobile

Comparison highlights

  • Tool score: the chart below shows community vote sentiment over the last 8 weeks. Use it as a signal, not a verdict.
  • Overlap: both cover Data APIs, and APIs & SDKs.
  • Coverage tilt: FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) has 8 categories you won't get in Wayback Machine (Internet Archive); Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) has 2 unique categories.

Category leaders

  • Data Visualizations: FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) is tagged for this workflow; Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) has no category votes yet.

Vote sentiment comparison

Cumulative positive vote share. Loading fresh totals...

FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)Wayback Machine (Internet Archive)

Side-by-side metrics

AttributeFRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data)Wayback Machine (Internet Archive)
Asset types

Supported asset classes and universes

Other

Other

Experience levels

Who each product is built for

Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced

Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced

Platforms

Where you can access the product

Web, Mobile, API

Web, API, Mobile

Pricing

High-level pricing models

Free

Free

Tested

Verified by hands-on testing inside Find My Moat

Not yet

Not yet

Editor pick

Featured inside curated shortlists

Standard listing

Standard listing

Coverage overlap

Shared categories

Categories where both tools offer overlapping coverage.

FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) strengths

Categories covered by FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) but not Wayback Machine (Internet Archive).

Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) strengths

Categories covered by Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) but not FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data).

Frequently Asked Questions

Which workflows do FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) and Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) both support?

Both platforms cover Data APIs, and APIs & SDKs workflows, so you can research those use cases in either tool before digging into the feature differences below.

Do FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) and Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) require subscriptions?

Both FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) and Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) keep freemium access with optional paid upgrades, so you can trial each platform before committing.

How can you access FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) and Wayback Machine (Internet Archive)?

Both FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) and Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) support web and mobile access, making it easy to keep tabs on research away from the desk.

What unique strengths set the two platforms apart?

FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) differentiates itself with 800,000+ economic data series from 100+ sources, covering topics such as GDP, prices/inflation, employment, exchange rates, and interest rates., Browse and track data via categories, releases, sources, and tags; series pages show metadata like units/frequency and “last updated / next release” fields., and Graphing and sharing options include embeddable graphs and graph-image links., whereas Wayback Machine (Internet Archive) stands out for On‑demand archiving via Save Page Now (SPN2) with POST/GET; options include capture_outlinks, capture_all, capture_screenshot, custom UA/cookies, and conditional capture (if_not_archived_within)., Snapshot discovery: Availability API (/wayback/v1/available) returns the closest archived capture to a URL/time; CDX Server API lists/filters captures; Memento TimeGate/TimeMap endpoints enable time‑based content negotiation., and Operational endpoints: user status (remaining/active SPN sessions) and system status (overload/OK) for SPN2..

Curation & Accuracy

This directory blends AI‑assisted discovery with human curation. Entries are reviewed, edited, and organized with the goal of expanding coverage and sharpening quality over time. Your feedback helps steer improvements (because no single human can capture everything all at once).

Details change. Pricing, features, and availability may be incomplete or out of date. Treat listings as a starting point and verify on the provider’s site before making decisions. If you spot an error or a gap, send a quick note and I’ll adjust.