# cs2.sh vs SteamApis for CS2 Market Data

> Choose cs2.sh when a CS2 product needs long history, intraday OHLC, sale aggregates, structured variants, liquidity, BUFF ranges, or full Steam orderbooks. Choose SteamApis when the product needs more marketplaces, several game economies, live offer streams, or recent individual sale records with item metadata.

## Depth for one economy versus a wider feed

[SteamApis v2](https://docs.steamapis.com/market-data/reference) documents market data across 26 marketplaces and four game economies: CS2, Dota 2, Rust, and Team Fortress 2. Its REST API and WebSocket provide current offers, price history, buy orders, and recent completed sales where a marketplace supplies them.

cs2.sh covers six CS2 marketplaces: BUFF, Youpin, CSFloat, Skinport, Steam, and C5Game. It goes deeper on CS2 price history, including ask and bid OHLC, long-term sale archives, variants, liquidity, BUFF range buckets, and full Steam orderbooks.

## Current differences

| Decision factor | cs2.sh | SteamApis |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Scope | Six CS2 marketplaces | 26 marketplaces across four game economies |
| Current data | Normalized asks, bids, volumes, and source timestamps | Current offers through REST and WebSocket feeds |
| Price history | 5m, 30m, 1h, and 1d ask and bid OHLC plus separate long-term archives | One item and one market per request, 15 days by default, with returned points downsampled as needed |
| Completed sales | CSFloat daily averages and counts, Steam native medians and counts, sampled Youpin sale prices | Recent individual sales where available, including float, paint index, paint seed, and stickers when supplied |
| Variants | Structured Doppler, Gamma Doppler, and Case Hardened data across current prices and history | Offer phase is exposed where available |
| Liquidity | Named class and estimated sale time | No equivalent documented field |
| Specialized depth | BUFF float and fade buckets; latest and historical full Steam orderbooks | Buy orders on supported markets and optional live-offer streaming |
| Pricing model | $75 current or $200 all endpoints, unlimited requests at 10 per second | Separate request, history, third-party, sales, and WebSocket modules |

SteamApis's [price-history documentation](https://docs.steamapis.com/market-data/rest/price-history) says the endpoint defaults to 15 days and returns a downsampled number of points. Its [sales endpoint](https://docs.steamapis.com/market-data/rest/sales) is a different kind of product from cs2.sh's aggregate archives: it returns recent individual transactions and their available item metadata instead of a long daily series optimized for charting and backtests.

## What cs2.sh returns for Steam

Steam arrives as one source among six in current prices, with both order counts:

```json
"steam": {
  "updated_at": "2026-07-26T18:52:21.42Z",
  "collected_at": "2026-07-26T18:52:56.46Z",
  "ask": 169.14,
  "ask_volume": 70,
  "bid": 155.05,
  "bid_volume": 2951
}
```

Two Steam-specific datasets sit behind it. `GET /v1/market/steam/latest` returns the full bid and ask ladder for every tracked item, as parallel `prices` and `volumes` arrays so level `n` is `prices[n]` at `volumes[n]`:

```json
"depth": {
  "ask_levels": 2,
  "bid_levels": 2,
  "asks": { "prices": [169.14, 169.4], "volumes": [1, 1] },
  "bids": { "prices": [155.05, 154.88], "volumes": [1, 1] }
}
```

`POST /v1/archive/steam` returns Steam's own native sale graph, the same series drawn on a Community Market item page:

| Property | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Coverage | Daily from April 26, 2013; hourly from May 9, 2026 |
| Fields | `price`, Steam's median sale price; `volume`, the purchase count |
| Max request range | None on either interval |
| Refresh | About 1-4x per day |
| Variants | Not supported, since Steam does not distinguish phases |

## Pick cs2.sh when

- A product needs CSFloat sales from 2022 or Steam daily sale history from 2013.
- Intraday ask and bid OHLC and multi-year marketplace archives are primary inputs.
- Doppler, Gamma Doppler, and Case Hardened identity must remain structured.
- Sale-derived liquidity and estimated sale time should be available without building a model.
- BUFF float or fade ranges and full Steam orderbook history matter.
- Flat unlimited usage is simpler than assembling multiple metered modules.

## Pick SteamApis when

- The same integration must cover CS2, Dota 2, Rust, or TF2.
- Coverage across 26 marketplaces is more important than deeper data on six.
- A live stream of individual marketplace offers is the core input.
- Recent per-sale float, paint seed, and sticker details are more useful than long aggregate sale history.
- The product also needs its broader Steam profiles, inventories, or app-data APIs.
- Modular pricing fits a narrowly scoped workload.

## Compare the actual event you need

A completed sale, a daily sale average, a current sell listing or buy order, and an OHLC candle answer different questions. Test one frequently sold item, one rarely sold item, and one Doppler phase through both products. Compare what each record means, available marketplaces, timestamp meaning, history length, and required request count before choosing.

Disclosure: this comparison is published by cs2.sh. SteamApis features and prices were checked against its official documentation and [pricing page](https://steamapis.com/pricing) on August 4, 2026.