Does Screener have an API? Alternatives for builders (2026)

Quick answer: the best Screener API alternative

There is no single replacement for Screener.in because each option serves a different workflow.

For a wider provider comparison, see the best Indian stock market APIs for developers.

Key takeaways

• Screener's official export guide says it does not provide APIs.
• Premium users can export screen results to CSV with their selected columns. That works for periodic scripts, but it is not a continuously supported production API.
• Do not build a customer-facing product around private Screener endpoints or scraping without written permission and a suitable data licence.
• Drishti is the closer fit when your code needs Indian-market events through REST, WebSockets, SDKs, or MCP.
• Broker APIs are built for trading-account workflows and price data, not for reproducing Screener's long-history fundamental research product.
• Direct NSE and BSE feeds provide exchange data under their own commercial, technical, and redistribution terms.

What does “no Screener API” mean?

Screener has application endpoints behind its own website. That is normal for a modern web product. It does not mean those endpoints are offered to outside developers.

A public production API normally gives you:

Screener's support documentation offers CSV export instead. Its terms of service describe personal, non-commercial, transitory viewing and restrict copying or commercial use under the service licence. If your intended use goes beyond the documented export workflow, ask Screener and the underlying data owner for permission rather than treating a reachable URL as permission.

This is not just legal housekeeping. A private endpoint can change when the website changes. It may depend on a session, return HTML instead of JSON, add bot protection, or expose a field that you are not licensed to redistribute. That is a poor foundation for software other people rely on.

When Screener CSV export is enough

CSV is the simplest option when a person remains in the loop.

Screener's premium export downloads the results of a saved screen, including the columns you selected and NSE/BSE exchange codes. Its feature page also describes Excel exports, uploaded Excel templates, custom ratios, custom columns, and automatic screen alerts.

Use this route when you need to:

• refresh an internal spreadsheet weekly or monthly;
• explore a screen in Pandas or R;
• join a manually downloaded company list to another licensed dataset;
• validate an idea before paying for a production feed.

The trade-off is manual operation. Your code cannot rely on a documented request contract, schedule continuous retrieval from Screener, or promise customers that the export will always contain the same fields.

If one analyst needs a fresh screen every Friday, CSV is probably fine. If a backend must process events all day, it is the wrong interface.

Alternative 1: Drishti for Indian-market intelligence APIs

Drishti exposes first-party REST endpoints, WebSocket streams, JavaScript/TypeScript and Python SDKs, and a hosted Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. The product is designed for software that retrieves and routes Indian-market information.

Current product areas include symbols, corporate announcements, earnings records, news, conference calls and transcripts, alerts, daily summaries, and batch summaries. The public OpenAPI specification documents request and response schemas for REST integrations. The WebSocket reference covers supported live streams and reconnect behaviour.

A minimal announcements request looks like this:

curl "https://developers.manasija.in/v1/announcements?symbols=RELIANCE&limit=10" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $DRISHTI_API_KEY"

Keep the key on your server. In production, add timeouts, retries with backoff, deduplication by source record ID, and logging that does not print credentials.

Drishti is not a clone of Screener. It does not replace Screener's long-history financial statements, ratio queries, peer tables, or finished company-research interface. Choose it when the requirement is programmatic event intelligence, not when the requirement is another fundamental screener.

The fuller distinction is covered in Drishti vs Screener.in.

Alternative 2: broker APIs for quotes, orders, and portfolios

Broker APIs solve a different developer problem.

Kite Connect documents REST-style APIs for orders, user portfolios, instruments, historical candles, and live market data over WebSockets. Upstox similarly publishes a Market Data Feed V3 for authenticated streaming price data.

Use a broker API when your application needs:

• user-authorised holdings and positions;
• order placement and order status;
• live quotes or market depth within the broker's terms;
• historical candles for supported instruments;
• a workflow tied to a brokerage account.

Do not choose a broker API because you expect it to reproduce Screener's fundamental dataset. Trading APIs lead with execution, accounts, and market prices. Company financial statements, custom accounting ratios, filing normalization, and long-history research may be absent or have a different scope.

Authentication also follows the end user's broker account. That is useful for portfolio products, but awkward for a server that needs one licensed dataset across all customers.

Alternative 3: licensed NSE and BSE data products

Direct exchange products are the source-level option.

NSE Data & Analytics publishes real-time, snapshot, delayed, corporate, and other market-data products. Delivery formats vary by product and include multicast feeds, leased lines, CSV, binary snapshots, and SFTP. NSE also publishes a data sharing and usage policy covering use, display, dissemination, and redistribution.

BSE's Self Data Feed offers API-delivered equity, derivatives, corporate, index, and delayed-data products, with registration, KYC, plan selection, agreements, and payment as part of access.

This route makes sense when you need:

• a direct commercial relationship with an exchange;
• specific latency or depth requirements;
• broad internal redistribution rights negotiated for your product;
• raw data your own team is prepared to normalize and operate.

The engineering cost is higher. You may need specialised feed handlers, symbol masters, corporate-action normalization, entitlements, monitoring, storage, and reconciliation. “Direct” does not mean “simple.”

Screener API alternatives compared

There is no universal replacement because “Screener API” usually hides several different requirements.

How to choose without rebuilding twice

Write down the exact record your application needs before choosing a vendor.

1. Name the data. Is it a ratio screen, financial statement, exchange announcement, live quote, order, or transcript?
2. Name the freshness. Monthly CSV, daily batch, near-live event, or tick-level feed?
3. Name the consumer. One analyst, an internal service, paying customers, or an AI agent?
4. Confirm usage rights. Internal analysis, public display, redistribution, and model input can require different permissions.
5. Test identifiers and gaps. Check symbols, ISINs, exchange codes, null fields, revisions, and delistings with real samples.
6. Plan for change. Use versioned schemas where available, save source IDs, and keep raw records for replay.

If the real requirement is “run a fundamental screen once a week,” do not build an event pipeline. Export the CSV.

If the requirement is “notify our product when a covered company files results,” use a documented market-intelligence API or licensed feed. That is the contract your software actually needs.

Frequently asked questions

Does Screener.in have an official API?

No. Screener's official support page says it does not provide APIs and recommends premium CSV export for using screen results in scripts.

What is the best Screener.in API alternative?

Use Screener's premium CSV export for periodic fundamental screens, Drishti for structured Indian-market events, a broker API for account and execution workflows, or a licensed NSE/BSE product for direct exchange data. The right choice depends on the record, freshness, user, and redistribution rights your application needs.

Can I use Screener's internal endpoints as an API?

Do not treat them as a production API. They are undocumented website implementation details without a published external contract. Check Screener's terms and obtain written permission for any automated or commercial use.

Can I automate Screener CSV downloads?

Screener documents a user-driven premium export, not a scheduled public API. If you need unattended retrieval, ask Screener whether it supports your use case or choose a documented provider.

Is Drishti a direct replacement for Screener?

No. Screener is stronger for fundamental screens, company pages, ratios, and long-history analysis. Drishti is for applications and agents that need structured Indian-market events through APIs, WebSockets, SDKs, or MCP.

Which API is best for live Indian stock prices?

Use a broker market-data API or a licensed NSE/BSE product that matches your latency, display, and redistribution requirements. Drishti's main fit is market intelligence and event workflows, not a substitute for every tick-data feed.

Start with the interface you actually need

For periodic research, use Screener's supported CSV export. For trading-account workflows, use a broker API. For direct exchange data, talk to NSE or BSE about the relevant product and licence.

If your application needs announcements, earnings, news, concalls, or agent-ready Indian-market context, start free with Drishti. Retrieve a narrow symbol set, inspect the real payloads, and confirm that the source fields and freshness match your workflow before building the rest.