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OpenF1 vs Data Sports Group (2026)
Short answer: OpenF1 scores clearly higher overall (66 vs 30). Data Sports Group is the better pick for media, gaming and fantasy businesses that want one commercial feed covering many sports and competitions, including niche and Olympic sports, with ready-made widgets.
From public data checked . How we know
Choose OpenF1 if you…
Free / open data
Best for: Hobby projects, dashboards and analysis of Formula 1 sessions that need free historical lap, telemetry and position data over a keyless REST API.
- ✓ want to start on a free tier
- ✓ prefer public, self-serve pricing over a sales call
- ✓ want WebSocket push instead of polling
- ✓ value a large open-source ecosystem of wrappers and examples
- ✓ care most about what developers report in practice
Not ideal for: Commercial products needing official F1 data or guaranteed uptime; it is an unofficial project and live data needs a paid sponsorship for personal use.
What developers say
Free open-source F1 API (lap times, telemetry, positions, weather, race control) used heavily in fan dashboards, replay tools, videos and analysis posts; historical data from 2023 needs no key, live access is paid. Users note it is unofficial, lacks pre-2023 data, has had outages that forced self-hosting, and deprecates fields. FastF1 and Jolpica are common alternatives.
Choose Data Sports Group if you…
B2B data feed
Best for: Media, gaming and fantasy businesses that want one commercial feed covering many sports and competitions, including niche and Olympic sports, with ready-made widgets.
- ✓ need Football (soccer), Cricket, Basketball
- ✓ need an enterprise feed with a contract and SLA-style support
Not ideal for: Developers wanting self-serve signup or published pricing; packages are customised on request and trial access goes through a contact form.
What developers say
Commercial multi-sport data feed with widgets, sold by quote. No independent user opinion exists. The digest holds only vendor-style marketing posts, a Chainlink oracle demo by a third party, and a couple of small repos, so pricing, quality and support are unknown.
Side by side
| OpenF1 | Data Sports Group | |
|---|---|---|
| SportDex Score | 66/100 (#7) | 30/100 (#142) |
| Popularity | 54 | 26 |
| Community & reliability | 72 | Not enough data |
| Transparency | 85 | 45 |
| Developer experience | 62 | 21 |
| Type | Free / open data | B2B data feed |
| Starting price | from €9.90/mo | Contact sales |
| Free tier | Yes | Not disclosed |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| Sports | Formula 1, Motorsport | Football (soccer), Cricket, Basketball, Tennis, Rugby, Motorsport, Esports, Multi-sport (40+) |
| Data | Historical data, Results, Live scores, Standings, Team stats, Tracking data | Fixtures, Historical data, Player stats, Results, Live scores, Standings, Team stats, Widgets |
| Delivery | Streaming (WebSocket) | Not disclosed |
| Protocols | REST, WebSocket | Not disclosed |
| Live / in-play | Yes | Yes |
| Commercial use | Commercial: not disclosed | Commercial: not disclosed |
| Betting products | Betting: not disclosed | Betting: not disclosed |
| Documentation | Docs | Docs |
| Developer discussions | 10 | 2 |
| GitHub repos | 675 | 2 |
| Community tone | Mostly positive | Too little discussion |
Empty fields mean the provider does not say, not that the feature is missing.
Quick answers
- Is OpenF1 or Data Sports Group better?
- OpenF1 scores clearly higher overall (66 vs 30). Data Sports Group is the better pick for media, gaming and fantasy businesses that want one commercial feed covering many sports and competitions, including niche and Olympic sports, with ready-made widgets.
- Which is cheaper, OpenF1 or Data Sports Group?
- OpenF1: from €9.90/mo. Data Sports Group: Contact sales. Entry plans differ in limits and coverage, so compare what each plan includes.
- Do OpenF1 and Data Sports Group have a free tier?
- OpenF1: yes. Data Sports Group: not disclosed.