Alpaca MCP Server

Official Alpaca MCP server enabling AI assistants to trade stocks, ETFs, crypto, and options, manage portfolios, access real-time and historical market data, and handle watchlists through natural language.

Evaluated Mar 06, 2026 (0d ago) vunknown

Homepage ↗ Repo ↗ Finance alpaca trading stocks etf crypto options mcp brokerage market-data portfolio

⚙ Agent Friendliness

/ 100

Can an agent use this?

🔒 Security

/ 100

Is it safe for agents?

⚡ Reliability

/ 100

Does it work consistently?

Score Breakdown

⚙ Agent Friendliness

MCP Quality

Documentation

Error Messages

Auth Simplicity

Rate Limits

🔒 Security

TLS Enforcement

100

Auth Strength

Scope Granularity

Dep. Hygiene

Secret Handling

FINRA/SEC regulated broker but MCP has no scope granularity - single API key grants full trading access. Paper/live toggle via env var is a configuration risk. No confirmation mechanism before trade execution.

⚡ Reliability

Uptime/SLA

Version Stability

Breaking Changes

Error Recovery

Best When

You have an Alpaca brokerage account and want an AI assistant to execute trades and monitor positions through natural language.

Avoid When

You need multi-broker support, backtesting capabilities, or are not comfortable giving an AI agent access to real trading endpoints.

Use Cases

• Place and manage stock, ETF, crypto, and options orders via AI assistant
• Monitor account balances, positions, and buying power
• Retrieve real-time quotes, historical bars, and options Greeks
• Manage watchlists and track corporate actions
• Build AI-powered trading workflows with paper or live accounts

Not For

• Backtesting historical strategies
• Non-Alpaca brokerage accounts
• High-frequency or ultra-low-latency trading

Interface

REST API

GraphQL

gRPC

MCP Server

Yes ↗

SDK

Webhooks

Authentication

Methods: api_key

OAuth: No Scopes: No

Requires ALPACA_API_KEY and ALPACA_SECRET_KEY env vars. ALPACA_PAPER_TRADE env var toggles between paper and live mode.

Pricing

Model: open_source

Free tier: Yes

Requires CC: No

Agent Metadata

Pagination

unknown

Idempotent

Retry Guidance

Not documented

Known Gotchas

⚠ CRITICAL: Order placement is not idempotent - retries can create duplicate orders with real financial consequences
⚠ Paper/live toggle is a single env var - misconfiguration could execute real trades
⚠ close_all_positions is extremely destructive and should never be auto-invoked by agents
⚠ Options trading (multi-leg) is complex and errors could be costly
⚠ No built-in confirmation step before trade execution

Alternatives

alpaca-trading-api interactive-brokers-mcp

Full Evaluation Report

Detailed scoring breakdown, competitive positioning, security analysis, and improvement recommendations for Alpaca MCP Server.

$99

API endpoint ↗ Agent guide ↗ Report inaccuracy

Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-03-06.