# Crypto tools that cover DeFi

What a card means by DeFi, and why that is not the same claim as reading a DEX or reading a chain — one word covering three different things.

*https://cryptomarkets.tools/collections/defi*

## Three claims that a reader hears as one

Thirty-two cards say they cover DeFi. The reason this page exists is not the thirty-two — it is
the three separate things that phrase can mean, and the cards that have one without the others.

**`coverage.asset_classes: defi`** says the card reports protocol positions: pools, lending
markets, staking, yield. That is the selector for this page.

**`coverage.venues: dex`** says where a price came from — an automated market maker rather than an
exchange order book. Twenty-six cards in the catalogue claim that and do *not* claim DeFi. A
[CCXT](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/ccxt) connector routing an order through a DEX is not reporting anything about the
protocol it routed through; neither is a bot, a charting platform, or a tick archive that happens
to record swap events.

**`capabilities.onchain_data`** says the product reads chains at all. Eight cards have it without
DeFi — a liquidation dashboard, a holder-graph tool, a terminal that shows a wallet balance. And
four cards on *this* page have DeFi without it: [CoinAPI](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/coinapi),
[Hummingbot](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/hummingbot), [Gunbot](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/gunbot) and [Velo](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/velo) touch DeFi assets
by trading them, not by indexing them.

One card on this page claims DeFi and not DEX — [growthepie](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/growthepie), which measures
Ethereum layer twos rather than trading on them. That is the shape of the whole distinction in a
single row.

## What is actually on the page

Fifteen are [on-chain analytics](https://cryptomarkets.tools/categories/onchain-analytics) platforms and eight are
[market-data APIs](https://cryptomarkets.tools/categories/market-data-apis); the remaining nine are terminals, charting
tools, bots and one backtester. Twenty-three have a free tier, the highest share of any shelf
here, and three are open source. That combination is particular to this corner of the market: the
underlying data is public, so what a vendor sells is the indexing, the decoding, the history and
the query — never access to the numbers themselves.

They split cleanly into two kinds of product, and choosing between the kinds matters more than
choosing between vendors inside one.

**Curated metric sets.** [DefiLlama](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/defillama) is the type specimen: somebody has already
decided what TVL, fees, revenue and earnings mean, written the rules down, and applied them
uniformly — 8,308 protocols across 468 chains in 102 categories on 19 September 2026. What you buy
is comparability. What you give up is everything outside the list: no SQL, no custom aggregation,
and adding a metric means writing an adapter and opening a pull request.
[Token Terminal](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/token-terminal) and [Artemis](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/artemis) work the same way against
different definitions.

**Query engines.** [Dune](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/dune), [Allium](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/allium),
[Bitquery](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/bitquery) and [Footprint Analytics](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/footprint-analytics) hand you the
decoded tables and let you define the metric yourself. The cost is that you now own the
definition, including the parts you did not think about.

**And pool screeners**, which are a third thing wearing the same word.
[DEX Screener](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/dex-screener), [DEXTools](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/dextools) and
[GeckoTerminal](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/geckoterminal) list live pairs — 228 networks and 1,978 DEXes on the last
of those — and answer "what is trading right now", not "what is this protocol worth".

## Where the free path stops

Later than anywhere else on this site, and then abruptly. DefiLlama's site and public API cost
nothing and need no account; Pro is 49 dollars a month; the API tier is 300 and is where the
per-minute limit, the unlock data and the MCP server live; hourly history, raw database access and
TVL broken down by token address are enterprise. GeckoTerminal is free to read and free to query
slowly. [Dune](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/dune) puts the API on every plan including the free one, which is unusual
enough to be the reason to pick it.

Twenty-two of the thirty-two cards carry at least one tier with no published number, so the
[priced on request](https://cryptomarkets.tools/collections/priced-on-request) shelf overlaps this one heavily. And two of
the screeners are paid for in a way that is not a subscription at all: DEX Screener by token
promotion, DEXTools by tiers gated on holding its own token. What that costs, and why it cannot be
compared with a monthly fee, is [a token threshold is not a
price](https://cryptomarkets.tools/guides/a-token-threshold-is-not-a-price).

## The two things to check before trusting a number

**The definition.** "Active addresses" can mean senders, receivers or either. TVL may or may not
net out the same collateral counted in two protocols. A vendor that publishes its methodology is
making a claim you can check; one that does not is asking for trust, and the numbers will differ.

**The chain list, on the card rather than on the site.**
[Trading Strategy](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/trading-strategy) is EVM-only — no Solana, no Bitcoin — and says so
plainly, which is a partial picture honestly labelled. Footprint Analytics covers neither Solana,
Bitcoin nor Tron while its homepage logo strip shows two of them. Whether a chain you care about
is a first-class citizen or a line in a coverage table is not something the coverage table
distinguishes; [the Solana shelf](https://cryptomarkets.tools/collections/solana) is the same problem at chain scale.

## Cards

- [Allium](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/allium.md) — Institutional SQL over 85+ indexed chains, with labels and no published price.
- [Amberdata Market Data API](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/amberdata.md) — Spot, futures and options data — and one exchange's feed you can buy with a card.
- [Arkham](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/arkham.md) — Address explorer where wallets already carry a named owner and a confidence grade.
- [Artemis](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/artemis.md) — Chain and protocol fundamentals — fees, revenue, users — one definition everywhere.
- [Bitquery](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/bitquery.md) — GraphQL over indexed chains — self-service plans are a real-time window, not history.
- [Coin Metrics](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/coin-metrics.md) — Institutional reference rates, exchange market data and network metrics behind one API.
- [CoinAPI Market Data API](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/coinapi.md) — One symbol scheme over 400+ venues, metered in REST credits and WebSocket gigabytes.
- [CoinDesk Data API](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/coindesk-data.md) — The old CryptoCompare API, renamed, re-hosted and no longer free.
- [CoinGecko API](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/coingecko-api.md) — Prices, market data and onchain DEX data for 18,000+ coins, via REST, websocket or MCP.
- [CoinMarketCap API](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/coinmarketcap-api.md) — Prices, rankings, DEX and derivatives data billed by data points returned, not by call.
- [CoinRoutes](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/coinroutes.md) — Institutional EMS with a dozen named algos, smart routing and a consolidated book.
- [CryptoQuant](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/cryptoquant.md) — Exchange reserves, miner flows and MVRV for four chains, as charts, alerts and an API.
- [DefiLlama](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/defillama.md) — DeFi's default metric set, with the TVL definition written down in public.
- [DEX Screener](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/dex-screener.md) — DEX pair screener and charts on 64 chains, paid for by token promotion rather than by you.
- [DEXTools](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/dextools.md) — The original DEX pair explorer, with premium tiers gated on holding its own token.
- [Dune](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/dune.md) — SQL over 100+ indexed chains, with the API on every plan including the free one.
- [Elwood](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/elwood.md) — Modular institutional OEMS over 40+ venues, sold to professional clients only.
- [Footprint Analytics](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/footprint-analytics.md) — Drag-and-drop charts or SQL over an indexed warehouse, free — with a slowing pulse.
- [GeckoTerminal](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/geckoterminal.md) — CoinGecko's DEX tracker — 228 networks, 1,978 DEXes, free to read, free to query slowly.
- [Glassnode](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/glassnode.md) — A curated metric set in a charting studio, with the API on a separate annual plan.
- [growthepie](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/growthepie.md) — Ethereum L2 economics, CC BY licensed, on an API with no key — and chains pay for depth.
- [Gunbot](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/gunbot.md) — A closed-source bot you install once, licensed against an ERC-20 wallet you control.
- [Hummingbot](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/hummingbot.md) — Apache-2.0 Python framework for running market-making bots on CEXs and DEXs.
- [Kaiko Market Data API](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/kaiko.md) — Tick history back to 2010, by REST, gRPC stream or cloud delivery.
- [Messari](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/messari.md) — Asset profiles, 500-source news and analyst-verified event monitoring, with an API.
- [Nansen](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/nansen.md) — A labelled view of the chain — who is buying, not just which address.
- [NautilusTrader](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/nautilus-trader.md) — Event-driven Rust engine that settles perpetual funding at the venue boundary.
- [SanAPI](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/sanapi.md) — The GraphQL API under Sanbase, sold on its own plans with its own call budget.
- [Santiment](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/santiment.md) — On-chain, social and developer metrics for a few thousand assets, on one set of axes.
- [Token Terminal](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/token-terminal.md) — Protocol fundamentals as an income statement — fees, revenue, earnings, multiples.
- [Trading Strategy](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/trading-strategy.md) — Normalised DeFi vault returns, TVL and risk across 117 protocols, with an AGPL backtester.
- [Velo](https://cryptomarkets.tools/tools/velo.md) — Derivatives terminal with order entry on Bybit and Hyperliquid, and the API behind it.

## FAQ

### What is the difference between "DeFi", "DEX" and "on-chain" on a card?

They are three fields answering three questions. Asset classes including DeFi says the card reports protocol positions — pools, lending, staking, yield. Venues including DEX says a price came off an automated market maker rather than an exchange order book. The on-chain-data capability says the product reads chains at all. A DEX screener has the second without the first; a liquidation dashboard can have the third without either. Twenty-six cards in the catalogue claim DEX and not DeFi.

### Do two vendors' TVL numbers mean the same thing?

Not reliably, and it is the most-quoted number here. The question that separates them is whether the same collateral, deposited into one protocol and borrowed against in a second, counts once or twice. DefiLlama's answer is that the rules are written down in public and applied by a JavaScript adapter per protocol, which anyone can read and anyone can open a pull request against. A platform that publishes its methodology is making a checkable claim; one that does not is asking for trust.

### Is DeFi coverage free?

Twenty-three of these thirty-two cards have a free tier, which is the highest share of any shelf on this site — DeFi data is public in a way exchange data is not, and a vendor that charged for the raw numbers would be charging for something you can read yourself. What is not free is the indexing, the decoding, the history and the query. DefiLlama's site and public API are free; hourly history, raw database access and TVL broken down by token address are the enterprise tier.

### Why do some DeFi tools miss whole chains?

Because indexing is per chain and the work does not generalise. Trading Strategy is EVM-only and says so, which leaves out Solana. Footprint Analytics does not cover Solana, Bitcoin or Tron, although its homepage logo strip shows two of them. growthepie is Ethereum layer twos by design. Read the chain list on the card rather than the logo strip on the site.