GiveRadar vs IATI: an honest comparison
This comparison is a little different, because IATI is not a product or a competitor: it is an open data standard for publishing aid and development activity data, with tools like the IATI Datastore built around it. GiveRadar is a charity intelligence platform that sits on the consuming side of standards like IATI, not across the table from them.
Primary sources
All IATI figures are from iatistandard.org and its tools, last reviewed July 2026; volatile figures carry their date where stated. GiveRadar figures are live counts from this platform.
This page is written and maintained by GiveRadar. We make no claim to neutrality: we built GiveRadar and we believe in it, and we have tried to represent IATI fairly. IATI is essential open infrastructure for aid transparency, and GiveRadar consumes IATI data as one enrichment source rather than competing with it. If you spot an inaccuracy, email info@giveradar.com and we will correct it.
Matt Timmermans
Founder of GiveRadar
GiveRadar
IATIWhat are GiveRadar and IATI each for?
One is a standard for publishing aid activity data; the other is a platform for looking up how an organization discloses. They sit at different layers, so the choice is really about which layer you need.
Look up how an organization discloses
"Who is this charity, what do official records disclose about it, and how complete is that disclosure?"
This needs a readable organization profile: registry facts, financials, officers, and a comparable disclosure score. GiveRadar answers it across 100+ countries, and raw IATI XML will not give you that.
Answered by GiveRadar
Publish and query aid activity data
"What aid activities is this organization funding or delivering, where, and with what money flows?"
This needs a common standard and open tooling: activity-level and transaction-level data that organizations publish themselves in XML, JSON, and CSV. IATI is that standard, and nothing on GiveRadar replaces the IATI Datastore.
Answered by IATIWho each one is
GiveRadar
GiveRadar is a free charity intelligence platform covering 7.9 million+ nonprofits across 100+ countries, built from 50+ official government registries and tax authorities, plus vetted directories where no registry data exists.
Every charity gets a 0-100 integrity assessment of disclosure and governance signals: registration, financial transparency, governance, contact availability, and data recency. It does not measure impact, and it cannot be bought.
Profiles add red flags, officer compensation where disclosed, GiveRadar Analysis peer context, and watchlists with change alerts. No signup is needed to look up a charity, and developers get a REST API and MCP server with free tiers.
IATI
IATI is an open data standard for aid transparency, the International Aid Transparency Initiative, launched in September 2008 in Accra, Ghana, with its Secretariat hosted by UNDP. It publishes machine-readable data on development and humanitarian aid activities.
As of July 2026, 1,846 organizations publish to the standard, from donor governments and multilaterals to foundations and NGOs, together reporting over 1 million activities. Around it sit the IATI Registry, the IATI Datastore, d-portal, IATI Publisher, and the IATI Validator.
All the data is free and openly licensed. IATI deliberately provides no rating, seal, or review of any organization: it publishes raw activity data and leaves interpretation to the user.
IATI is the aid-data standard, GiveRadar is the organization platform
There is no winner here because the two are not competing. IATI is infrastructure: a standard plus tooling that answers "what aid activities is this organization funding or delivering, where, and with what money flows". If you work in development cooperation and need activity-level or transaction-level aid data, IATI is the source.
GiveRadar answers a different question: who is this charity, what do official records disclose about it, and how complete is that disclosure, scored as an integrity assessment across 100+ countries. GiveRadar consumes IATI data as one of its enrichment sources, which tells you how we see the relationship: upstream standard, downstream platform.
How do GiveRadar and IATI fit together?
They describe the same aid system from different angles: IATI at the activity level (what work is funded and delivered), GiveRadar at the organization level (who the organization is and what it discloses). One feeds the other.
GiveRadar: the organization layer
- A readable profile per organization: registration, financials, officers, and contacts.
- A 0-100 integrity assessment of disclosure, which IATI by design does not offer.
- Built from 50+ official sources, and it consumes IATI data as one of them.
IATI: the activity layer
- Activity-level and transaction-level aid data: budgets, disbursements, sectors, and locations.
- Self-published by 1,846 organizations in the IATI XML standard (as of July 2026).
- Queryable free through the IATI Datastore in XML, JSON, and CSV.
IATI publishes raw data for users to interpret; GiveRadar is one of those users. The two cover different layers of the same picture and are stronger read together.
GiveRadar vs IATI: the full comparison table
A standard and a platform are not the same kind of thing; the table lines them up across the dimensions where each is meaningful. IATI figures last reviewed July 2026.
| Dimension | GiveRadar | IATI |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A charity intelligence platform: profiles, scores, monitoring, API | An open data standard plus tooling (Registry, Datastore, d-portal, Validator); not a product with organization profiles |
| Coverage | 7.9 million+ nonprofit organizations | 1,846 publishing organizations reporting over 1 million aid activities |
| Geography | 100+ countries | Global, focused on development and humanitarian aid flows |
| What the score means | Integrity assessment, 0-100: disclosure and governance signals from official records. Not impact, cannot be bought | No score, seal, or rating of organizations. The IATI Validator checks data compliance, not organization quality |
| Price | Free for everyone, no account to browse. API: free tier, Pro 99 USD/month | All data free and openly licensed; no paid tiers anywhere |
| Data source | 50+ official government registries and tax authorities; provenance per data point | Self-published by each organization in the IATI XML standard, cataloged on the IATI Registry |
| API | REST API and MCP server; free tier (10 req/day), Pro 99 USD/month; keyless MCP | Datastore v3 API via the IATI API Gateway: free but keyed, Exploratory 5 calls/min and 100 calls/week; returns XML, JSON, CSV |
| Monitoring | Watchlists and change alerts, free | No monitoring product; the Datastore aims to reflect new publications within 24 hours for you to query |
Scroll the table sideways on a phone to see every column.
When should you use IATI vs GiveRadar?
One serves the activity layer, the other the organization layer, and for serious research you often want both.
Use GiveRadar when
- You want a profile of a specific nonprofit, not a feed of activities: registration facts, financials, and officers.
- You want a comparable disclosure signal: the integrity assessment scores what official records disclose, which IATI does not offer.
- The organization is a domestic charity that does not publish to IATI, like most of the 7.9 million+ nonprofits on GiveRadar.
- You want a quick, signup-free answer, or free monitoring via watchlists and change alerts.
Use IATI when
- You need activity-level or transaction-level aid data: budgets, disbursements, sectors, and locations.
- You are researching official development flows across donors, multilaterals, and implementers.
- You want fully open, openly licensed data with no paid tiers, via Datastore Search or the v3 API.
- You are an aid organization that needs to publish your own data; IATI Publisher and the Validator exist for that.
Use both when
You are vetting an international NGO seriously. Check its integrity assessment, red flags, and registry facts on GiveRadar, then pull its published activities from the IATI Datastore to see what it reports funding and delivering, where. One view is what official registries disclose about the organization; the other is what the organization publishes about its work. For developers, GiveRadar's REST API and MCP server cover organization profiles and scores, while the IATI Datastore v3 API covers standardized activity data, and see our comparison with NGO Explorer for the development-sector research angle.
Is GiveRadar an IATI alternative?
Honestly, no: if what you need is what IATI provides, there is no alternative, and GiveRadar does not pretend to be one. No other open standard carries self-published, machine-readable activity data from 1,846 aid organizations (as of July 2026), and GiveRadar has no activity-level or transaction-level aid data at all. If you came here for the IATI Datastore specifically, note that within the IATI ecosystem there is one genuine alternative, IATI.cloud, a third-party datastore maintained by the zimmerman team and refreshed every 3 hours, though IATI documents an official transition path to Datastore API v3, so v3 is the supported default.
Where GiveRadar is the right tool instead is a different question: you have an organization name and want to know who they are, whether official records disclose their finances and governance, and how that disclosure compares with peers. We consume IATI data as an enrichment source alongside 50+ official government registries and tax authorities. If you searched "IATI alternative" meaning "an easier way to look up a nonprofit than querying the datastore", that is exactly the layer GiveRadar adds, free and without a signup. You can look up any charity free to start.
GiveRadar and IATI: common questions
Is GiveRadar an IATI alternative?
No, and it does not try to be. IATI is an open data standard for publishing aid activity data; GiveRadar is a charity intelligence platform that profiles and scores organizations, and it consumes IATI data as one of its enrichment sources. If you need activity-level aid data, use IATI. If you need an organization profile with an integrity assessment, use GiveRadar. They sit at different layers, not in competition.
Is IATI or GiveRadar better?
Neither; they answer different questions. IATI tells you what aid activities 1,846 publishing organizations report, in open XML, JSON, and CSV (as of July 2026). GiveRadar tells you what official records disclose about 7.9 million+ nonprofits across 100+ countries, scored 0-100 as an integrity assessment. The honest one-line steer: aid flows and activity data, IATI; organization lookups and disclosure scoring, GiveRadar.
Is the IATI Datastore free to use?
Yes. All IATI data is freely available and openly licensed, with no paid tiers. Programmatic access to the Datastore v3 API goes through the IATI API Gateway and requires a free API key, with two tiers: Exploratory (5 calls per minute, up to 100 calls per week, instant) and Full Access (high call limits, free, approved by the IATI Secretariat). The no-code Datastore Search needs no key and exports Excel-optimised CSV. (As of July 2026.)
Does IATI rate or score the organizations that publish to it?
No. IATI deliberately provides no rating, seal, or review of any organization; it publishes raw activity data for users to interpret. The IATI Validator checks whether published data complies with the Standard, which is a data-quality check, not a judgment on the organization. If you want a per-organization disclosure score, that is what GiveRadar's integrity assessment provides, from official government records.
Other data sources compared
Check any charity's disclosure record, free
Search 7.9M+ nonprofits in 100+ countries. Then pull the activity data from IATI; the two layers read best together.