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Cricsheet vs Retrosheet (2026)
Short answer: Cricsheet scores slightly higher (61 vs 55). Retrosheet is the better pick for baseball researchers and hobbyists who want free bulk MLB play-by-play, game logs and schedules as downloadable CSV files.
From public data checked . How we know
Choose Cricsheet if you…
Free / open data
Best for: Cricket analysts and researchers who want free ball-by-ball match data with person and venue ID registers, downloaded in bulk as JSON, YAML or CSV.
- ✓ need Cricket
- ✓ need commercial use allowed in the public terms
- ✓ value a large open-source ecosystem of wrappers and examples
Not ideal for: Live scores or in-play apps, or anyone needing a REST API; it is bulk downloads of historical data only.
What developers say
Free ball-by-ball cricket data in JSON, YAML and CSV, widely used for analytics packages, IPL analysis repos and dashboards, with millions of deliveries loaded into projects. Users value it as a free, detailed source. Limits: bulk file downloads only, with no live scores, so people look elsewhere for live APIs.
Choose Retrosheet if you…
Free / open data
Best for: Baseball researchers and hobbyists who want free bulk MLB play-by-play, game logs and schedules as downloadable CSV files.
- ✓ need Baseball
Not ideal for: Apps that need a live API or current-day data; Retrosheet offers bulk file downloads only, with a copyright notice on the data.
What developers say
Volunteer-run archive of MLB play-by-play, game logs and schedules as downloadable files, not a hosted API. Recommended on HN and betting forums for model building and ETL practice, and widely used by tools such as Chadwick and boxball Docker images. Free and deep history back to 1914; you must parse and host it yourself.
Side by side
| Cricsheet | Retrosheet | |
|---|---|---|
| SportDex Score | 61/100 (#14) | 55/100 (#30) |
| Popularity | 43 | 36 |
| Community & reliability | 70 | 69 |
| Transparency | 90 | 75 |
| Developer experience | 52 | 51 |
| Type | Free / open data | Free / open data |
| Starting price | Free tier | Free tier |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| Sports | Cricket | Baseball |
| Data | Historical data, Play-by-play, Results, Team stats | Fixtures, Historical data, Play-by-play, Results, Team stats |
| Delivery | CSV download | CSV download |
| Protocols | CSV download | CSV download |
| Live / in-play | No | No |
| Commercial use | Commercial: Allowed | Commercial: not disclosed |
| Betting products | Betting: not disclosed | Betting: not disclosed |
| Documentation | Docs | Docs |
| Developer discussions | 3 | 6 |
| GitHub repos | 827 | 347 |
| Community tone | Mostly positive | Mostly positive |
Empty fields mean the provider does not say, not that the feature is missing.
Quick answers
- Is Cricsheet or Retrosheet better?
- Cricsheet scores slightly higher (61 vs 55). Retrosheet is the better pick for baseball researchers and hobbyists who want free bulk MLB play-by-play, game logs and schedules as downloadable CSV files.
- Which is cheaper, Cricsheet or Retrosheet?
- Cricsheet: Free tier. Retrosheet: Free tier. Entry plans differ in limits and coverage, so compare what each plan includes.
- Do Cricsheet and Retrosheet have a free tier?
- Cricsheet: yes. Retrosheet: yes.