:::note
**TL;DR**
- The alternatives to RoxyAPI group by need: a single-domain API costs less when your app uses one system only, a self-hosted ephemeris library gives full engine control for licensing review and upkeep, and a Vedic-only vendor suits a product built on one tradition. RoxyAPI fits apps that need several domains, Remote MCP and typed SDKs on one key.
- RoxyAPI starts at $39 a month for 50,000 requests, and every plan includes all 18+ domains and 258+ endpoints, about $1.80 per domain per month on annual billing.
- Every claim is checkable before paying: the API reference returns real production responses with no signup, and a public MIT benchmark measures a median deviation of 0.05 arcseconds (0.00001 degrees) from NASA JPL Horizons.
- It is not the right fit for one endpoint at hobby volume, for a team that must run the engine on its own servers, or for a product that wants a hosted chat endpoint to write every reading.
:::

Search for "RoxyAPI alternatives" and most of what comes back was written by vendors ranking themselves. This page answers the question from the other side: what the real alternatives are, grouped by what your app needs, when each one is the better pick, and when RoxyAPI is. It is written for a developer or a founder who has found RoxyAPI and wants to know whether it is worth paying for before committing a product to it.

The short version: there are four kinds of alternative, not forty vendors. A single-domain API, a self-hosted library, a vendor focused on one tradition, and a hosted AI reading service. Each one wins in a specific situation, and each one costs you something the others do not. The sections below are in the order a buyer usually asks them.

## What are the alternatives to RoxyAPI?

The alternatives to RoxyAPI fall into four categories, and the right one depends on how many domains your product needs, who owns the engine, and who writes the reading. Pick by need, not by brand. If your roadmap stops at one system forever, a narrower option can cost less. If it will ever touch a second domain or an AI agent, the trade usually reverses.

| If your app needs | Consider | It wins when | What you take on |
|---|---|---|---|
| One domain only, at low volume | A single-domain API | You will never add a second system | A second vendor, key, schema and bill the day you add tarot, numerology or human design |
| Full engine control on your own servers | A self-hosted ephemeris library | You have in-house astrology expertise and a licensing review in place | Accuracy verification, house systems, historical timezones, every domain built and kept correct, and the AGPL question below |
| One tradition, Vedic only | A vendor whose catalog is one tradition | The product will stay inside Jyotish for good | The same second-vendor cost if you later add Western astrology, tarot or human design |
| A reading written for you by a model | A hosted AI reading API | You want no prompt or model work at all | The vendor owns the system prompt, the model choice, the memory and a margin on every query |

For a named head-to-head, our [RoxyAPI vs Prokerala comparison](/blogs/roxyapi-vs-prokerala-comparison "RoxyAPI vs Prokerala astrology API comparison on pricing, domains, MCP and SDKs") covers one incumbent in detail, and the [astrology API buyer guide](/blogs/best-astrology-apis-developers "best astrology APIs for developers, a buyer guide with pricing and accuracy") compares the field on pricing, accuracy, MCP and licensing.

Ready to check the output yourself? The [Western Astrology API](/products/astrology-api "production-ready Western Astrology API with natal charts, transits and synastry") returns a complete natal chart in one request, and the reference runs live in the browser. [See pricing](/pricing "RoxyAPI pricing and plan tiers").

## Is RoxyAPI worth it?

RoxyAPI is worth it when your product needs two or more insight domains, an AI agent integration, or a calculation you can verify against an external authority. One $39 Starter subscription covers 50,000 requests a month across all 18+ domains, from Western astrology and Vedic astrology to forecast, human design, Chinese astrology, numerology and tarot, with no per-domain surcharge and no credit weighting.

The unit that matters is the price per domain. On annual Starter billing it is about $1.80 per domain per month, and $2.17 on monthly billing, against roughly $12 a month or more for a typical single-domain astrology API that covers one tradition. One request is one quota unit whether it arrives over REST or Remote MCP, so the bill tracks how many people use your app, not which endpoints they happen to call. The [multi-domain pricing breakdown](/blogs/astrology-api-pricing-comparison-multi-domain "real cost of multi-domain spiritual APIs, one key against eighteen") has the full math.

What the subscription includes beyond requests is where most of the value sits:

- **Remote MCP** for every domain over Streamable HTTP, 255+ tools an agent discovers with no local process. Setup is in the [MCP guide](/docs/mcp "RoxyAPI Remote MCP setup for Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT and other agents").
- **Typed SDKs** for TypeScript, Python, PHP, C# and Go, plus a WordPress plugin, generated from the live OpenAPI spec. See the [SDK docs](/docs/sdk "RoxyAPI SDKs for TypeScript, Python, PHP, C#, Go and WordPress").
- **Drop-in [UI components](/ui "Roxy UI web components that render charts and readings from the API response")** and copy-paste [widgets](/widgets "embeddable astrology widgets for any site with an HTML block") that render charts and readings with no frontend work.
- **Free MIT [templates](/templates "open source RoxyAPI templates for chatbots, web and mobile apps")**, including an AI astrology chatbot and a companion app with memory.
- **Interpretations in 10+ languages** through one `lang` parameter.

For what builders say after shipping on it, read the [RoxyAPI reviews](/reviews "RoxyAPI customer reviews from developers and founders").

## Who should not use RoxyAPI?

RoxyAPI is the wrong fit in four situations, and saying so plainly is more useful than pretending every buyer is the same. If one of these describes your product, one of the alternatives above will serve you better or cost you less.

1. **One endpoint at hobby volume.** If you need a single sun-sign lookup for a side project and you are comfortable running a library and owning its license terms, a self-hosted library is cheaper, and nothing here pretends otherwise.
2. **The engine must run on your own infrastructure.** RoxyAPI is a hosted API. If a regulator or a contract requires every calculation to run inside your network, or offline inside a native app, you need a library you host yourself.
3. **You want a hosted chat endpoint to write each reading.** RoxyAPI deliberately does not sell one. It returns verified calculations and editorial interpretations, and your own model, prompt and memory sit on top. The reasons are in [why we do not ship an AI astrology chat endpoint](/blogs/ai-astrology-chat-endpoint-bring-your-own-llm "bring your own LLM instead of a hosted AI astrology chat endpoint").
4. **You want many subjects in one call.** Every request computes one subject, one chart or one reading. There is no batch endpoint that charts a list of people at once.

None of these is about accuracy or coverage. They are about where the engine runs and who writes the reading.

## How do you check any alternative before you pay?

Check every provider, including this one, with the same five tests: a live specification you can count, responses you can see without signing up, an accuracy figure you can rerun, a named team and jurisdiction, and a licence you can read. A provider that cannot pass a test is asking you to trust a marketing table.

How RoxyAPI answers each test:

- **A live spec.** The OpenAPI specification is public and generated from the running code, so the 258+ endpoint figure is something you count, not something you read.
- **Real responses, no signup.** The [API reference](/api-reference "RoxyAPI interactive API reference with live production responses") runs every endpoint in the browser against production, with no key and no account.
- **A rerunnable accuracy figure.** Calculations run on Roxy Ephemeris, which reads the NASA JPL DE440 ephemeris directly. The [open benchmark](https://github.com/RoxyAPI/astrology-api-benchmark) measures a median deviation of 0.05 arcseconds (0.00001 degrees) from NASA JPL Horizons, far finer than the eye can resolve, and you can point the same harness at any other API. The full verification matrix is on the [methodology page](/methodology "RoxyAPI accuracy methodology and gold standard verification").
- **A named team and jurisdiction.** RoxyAPI is built by a small, independent team of senior engineers, and the calculation engine is built in house. Account and usage data is held in Germany, inside the European Union, and the [transparency report](/transparency "RoxyAPI transparency report with dated and re-countable figures") publishes every figure with a date or a way to re-count it.
- **A licence you can read.** The [commercial license](/policy/license "RoxyAPI commercial license terms") allows closed-source commercial apps on every plan, and the [data processing addendum](/policy/dpa "RoxyAPI GDPR data processing addendum") is published rather than negotiated.

The [evaluation checklist](/blogs/how-to-evaluate-astrology-api-checklist "how to evaluate an astrology API before you build on it") turns these into a scorecard you can run against any vendor.

## Should you self-host an ephemeris library instead?

Self-hosting is a real alternative for a narrow case: one domain, your own servers, and in-house expertise to verify the output. You can compute a chart yourself, but a production offering is ongoing engineering: accuracy verified against NASA JPL Horizons and kept verified, every domain on one key, interpretations in 10+ languages, Remote MCP, typed SDKs, UI components and widgets, and the uptime and support behind all of it.

Licensing decides the rest. The most widely used ephemeris library, Swiss Ephemeris, is available under the AGPL or a paid commercial license, and the AGPL obligation is triggered by offering software over a network, not only by distributing it. A team that installs the free edition and ships a web service has accepted that obligation by default. RoxyAPI runs Roxy Ephemeris, its own engine, so nothing you build on it inherits a copyleft obligation. The longer answer, including where self-hosting genuinely wins, is in [is it hard to build your own astrology API](/blogs/is-it-hard-to-build-your-own-astrology-api "build versus buy for an astrology API, licensing and engineering").

## Is a Vedic-only provider a better fit for a Jyotish app?

A Vedic-only vendor suits a product that will never leave Jyotish, but RoxyAPI covers the same core calculations on the same key as everything else. That includes a complete [kundli](/apis/kundli-api "Kundli API: complete Vedic birth chart with all nine planets and Lagna") with nakshatra and pada for every planet, all five levels of [Vimshottari dasha](/apis/vimshottari-dasha-api "Vimshottari Dasha API: all five dasha levels with remaining time in each"), divisional charts, panchang, KP, doshas, and both Ashtakoot Gun Milan and South Indian porutham [kundli matching](/apis/kundli-matching-api "Kundli matching API with Ashtakoot Gun Milan compatibility").

The difference shows up the day the product grows. A matrimonial app that later adds Western synastry, or a Jyotish app that adds tarot or numerology, needs no new vendor on RoxyAPI. The [Vedic astrology API buyer guide](/blogs/best-vedic-astrology-api-kundli "best Vedic astrology API for kundli and panchang, compared") compares the options for kundli and panchang directly.

## What does one provider save over several?

One provider saves the integration work that never shows on an invoice. Three separate vendors means three keys, three authentication schemes, three response shapes to normalize into your data model, three error formats, three bills and three uptime dependencies. One provider means one key, one base URL, one schema convention and one bill, which matters most for a solo developer or a small team.

It matters even more for AI agents. With RoxyAPI each domain is its own Remote MCP server, so an agent connects to astrology, tarot or human design the same way, with the same key, and adding a capability is a configuration line rather than a new vendor evaluation. The patterns that need this are the ones users open every day: a daily dashboard that pairs a horoscope with a card of the day, a compatibility feature that combines synastry with Life Path numbers, and a chatbot that moves from a birth chart question to a dream symbol mid-conversation.

Switching is low-risk in either direction. The API is stateless, so it stores no birth data or user profiles, and your users and the memory you build on them stay in your stack. The SDKs are generated from a public OpenAPI spec, so there is no proprietary client to unwind.

## Developer section: run the same check on any provider

The fastest way to compare providers is to send the same birth to each one and read the result side by side. On RoxyAPI that takes two calls: resolve the birthplace, then request the chart with the coordinates and timezone it returns.

```bash
# 1. Resolve the birthplace to coordinates and an IANA timezone
curl "https://roxyapi.com/api/v2/location/search?q=London&limit=1" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"

# 2. Request the natal chart with the values from cities[0]
curl -X POST "https://roxyapi.com/api/v2/astrology/natal-chart" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "date": "1990-07-15",
    "time": "14:30:00",
    "latitude": 51.5085,
    "longitude": -0.1257,
    "timezone": "Europe/London"
  }'
```

For that birth the response places the Ascendant at 1.97 degrees Scorpio and the Sun at 22.81 degrees Cancer, alongside every planet, house, aspect and its interpretation. Send the same input to any alternative and compare the Ascendant first: one minute of birth time moves it by roughly a quarter of a degree, so it is where timezone and house bugs show up. The same endpoint runs keyless in the [natal chart reference](/api-reference#tag/western-astrology/POST/astrology/natal-chart "natal chart API reference with live production responses").

## FAQ

**Is RoxyAPI worth it for a side project?**
Yes, if the side project uses more than one domain or an AI agent, because one $39 Starter plan covers every domain and Remote MCP. If it needs one simple lookup at very low volume, a self-hosted library costs less. You can judge the output first in the API reference, which returns real production responses with no signup.

**Is there a free alternative to RoxyAPI?**
Self-hosted ephemeris libraries are free to download, but the most common one is licensed under the AGPL unless you buy its commercial license, and you take on accuracy and upkeep. RoxyAPI lets you inspect every endpoint for free in the API reference and in its free calculators at /tools before paying for a plan.

**Can I self-host instead of using RoxyAPI?**
Yes, for one domain on your own servers with in-house expertise. RoxyAPI is a hosted API, so it fits teams that want every domain, Remote MCP, typed SDKs and UI components maintained for them. Its engine is not distributed for self-hosting.

**Does RoxyAPI use Swiss Ephemeris?**
No. RoxyAPI runs Roxy Ephemeris, its own engine, which reads the NASA JPL DE440 ephemeris directly and is verified against NASA JPL Horizons. Nothing built on it inherits an AGPL obligation, and the commercial license allows closed-source apps on every plan.

**Who are the main competitors of RoxyAPI?**
RoxyAPI competes with single-domain astrology APIs, Vedic-only vendors, self-hosted ephemeris libraries and hosted AI reading services. RoxyAPI is the multi-domain option among them: 18+ domains and 258+ endpoints on one key, a Remote MCP server per domain, and accuracy published as a rerunnable benchmark.

**What does RoxyAPI not do?**
RoxyAPI does not run on your own servers, does not sell a hosted chat endpoint that writes readings with its own model, and does not compute many subjects in one batch call. It returns one verified chart or reading per request, with interpretations, for your own app or agent to present.

## Conclusion

The alternatives to RoxyAPI are real, and each one wins in a narrow case: one domain, your own servers, one tradition, or a vendor-written reading. For anything multi-domain, agent-facing or commercial, one key across 18+ domains with verified accuracy is the lower total cost. Explore the [full product catalog](/products "every RoxyAPI domain on one key") or compare [plans and pricing](/pricing "RoxyAPI pricing and plan tiers").