Compare
healthcare.dev vs openFDA
openFDA is the FDA's public API and bulk download service for drugs, devices and foods: labels, NDC, adverse events, recalls and more. It's free and the primary source for that data.
Side by side
| openFDA | healthcare.dev | |
|---|---|---|
| One schema across sources | FDA data only, each endpoint with its own fields | Yes: codes, drugs and providers share one response shape and meta block |
| As-of versioning | Current data; bulk files for history | Yes: ?as_of=YYYY-MM-DD on every lookup returns the record as it was |
| Citations on every response | Disclaimer and FDA source noted per endpoint | Yes: source, source URL, file checksum, version and license terms |
| Change feed | No | Yes: added, changed and retired records per release (Builder and up) |
| MCP server | No | Yes: remote MCP with one-click sign-in for Claude, Cursor and VS Code |
openFDA is run by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Details as we understand them on the date of this page; see their documentation for current features and limits.
Which to use
Use openFDA for
- Adverse events, device data and food data, which healthcare.dev doesn't serve.
- Ad-hoc analysis with openFDA's query language and count endpoints.
Use healthcare.dev for
- Drug lookups that already join NDC to RxNorm, NADAC prices, recalls and shortages.
- One schema across FDA, NLM and CMS sources, instead of a different shape per endpoint.
- Release-to-release change feeds and as-of lookups for the data your app relies on.