GiveRadar vs OpenCorporates: an honest comparison
GiveRadar and OpenCorporates hold different data about different populations, so this is less a rivalry than a boundary line. OpenCorporates is the reference open database for companies and legal entities. GiveRadar is charity-specific: it scores how much a nonprofit discloses, from official registries.
Primary sources
All OpenCorporates figures are from its own published pages as of July 2026 and will drift; 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 OpenCorporates fairly. OpenCorporates is the reference open database for companies and legal entities, and we recommend it without reservation for that work. The two hold different data about different populations and combine well. If you spot an inaccuracy, email info@giveradar.com and we will correct it.
Matt Timmermans
Founder of GiveRadar
GiveRadar
OpenCorporatesWhat are GiveRadar and OpenCorporates each for?
They hold different data about different populations. OpenCorporates covers companies and legal entities of every type; GiveRadar covers charities and nonprofits. Name the entity you are researching and the choice is obvious.
Research a charity
"Is this nonprofit registered, transparent, and well-governed?"
This needs charity regulators and tax authorities, plus a disclosure score OpenCorporates does not produce. GiveRadar answers it for 7.9 million+ nonprofits across 100+ countries, with an integrity assessment and red flags.
Answered by GiveRadar
Research a company
"Who is behind this company, and what other entities are connected to it?"
This needs raw corporate registry data at scale: company names, incorporation dates, addresses, officers, and filings across jurisdictions. OpenCorporates is the largest open database for exactly that, and GiveRadar holds no corporate ownership data.
Answered by OpenCorporatesWho 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 that measures how much the organization discloses: registration, financial transparency, governance, contact availability, and data recency. It does not measure impact, and it cannot be bought.
Red flags mark high executive pay, stale filings, and bare-minimum disclosure. GiveRadar Analysis adds peer context, watchlists send change alerts, and a REST API and MCP server both have free tiers. Every data point shows where it came from.
OpenCorporates
OpenCorporates is the world's largest open database of companies and legal entities, by its own count: over 200 million company records from official corporate registries across 140+ jurisdictions, spanning 290+ individual registers, with over 5 million searches per month (figures from OpenCorporates, as of July 2026).
It is a London-based public benefit company, with its transparency mission written into its articles of association, and a certified B Corporation since October 2023. It was founded by Chris Taggart and Rob McKinnon in December 2010; since October 2024 it has been led by CEO Wojtek Kokoszka, with Taggart in a strategic founder role.
Web search is free; the commercial self-serve API starts at 2,250 GBP per year, with custom Enterprise bulk delivery via SFTP, while investigative journalists, NGOs, universities, and anti-corruption researchers get free at-scale access. It publishes raw registry data with no ratings, scores, seals, or reviews, and it covers all legal entity types rather than charities specifically.
OpenCorporates maps companies, GiveRadar scores charities
GiveRadar and OpenCorporates hold different data about different populations, so this is less a rivalry than a boundary line. OpenCorporates is the reference database for legal entities: 200M+ company records from official corporate registries in 140+ jurisdictions (as of July 2026), raw and unscored, which makes it the standard tool for corporate-network research, KYB, and investigative work.
GiveRadar is charity-specific: it draws on charity regulators and tax authorities, scores each nonprofit's disclosure with a 0-100 integrity assessment, and adds red flags, officer records, and monitoring. OpenCorporates has no charity-status flag, by scope rather than omission; GiveRadar does not map corporate ownership. If your due diligence touches both a nonprofit and the companies around it, you want both tools open.
How big is OpenCorporates?
OpenCorporates is the largest open company database there is, and its scale is the whole point: it aggregates official corporate registries worldwide into one searchable place. These are its own published headline figures.
Source: OpenCorporates, as of July 2026. That scale is companies, not charities: OpenCorporates ingests corporate registers, not charity regulators. GiveRadar's coverage is the charity population it does not hold, 7.9 million+ nonprofits in 100+ countries, free to everyone.
GiveRadar vs OpenCorporates: the full comparison table
These tools hold different data; the table lines them up across the dimensions where each is meaningful. OpenCorporates figures last reviewed July 2026.
| Dimension | GiveRadar | OpenCorporates |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | 7.9 million+ nonprofits | 200M+ companies and legal entities of all types |
| Geography | 100+ countries | 140+ jurisdictions across 290+ individual corporate registers |
| What the score means | Integrity assessment, 0-100: measures public disclosure, never impact, cannot be bought | No score, rating, seal, or review: raw registry data (names, incorporation dates, addresses, officers, filings) for you to interpret |
| Price | Free for everyone; charities cannot pay for placement or scores | Web search free; self-serve API from 2,250 GBP/year up to 12,000 GBP/year, Enterprise custom; free at-scale access for journalists, NGOs, universities, and anti-corruption researchers |
| Data source | 50+ official government registries and tax authorities; provenance per data point | Official corporate and business registries (Companies House, US Secretaries of State, and similar); no dedicated charity regulators |
| API | REST API and MCP server, both with free tiers | Commercial REST API (JSON/XML) with published self-serve plans; bulk data via secure SFTP |
| Monitoring | Watchlists with change alerts on filings, scores, and red flags | No monitoring or alert feature stated on its site (as of July 2026) |
Scroll the table sideways on a phone to see every column.
When should you use OpenCorporates vs GiveRadar?
Pick by entity type, and open both when a case crosses the corporate-nonprofit line.
Use GiveRadar when
- Your subject is a charity: GiveRadar covers 7.9 million+ organizations sourced from charity regulators OpenCorporates does not ingest.
- You want disclosure judged, not just displayed: a 0-100 integrity assessment with visible components, plus red flags.
- You need charity-specific records: financial filings by year, officer compensation where disclosed, and peer context.
- You want to check a charity free at any scale, with watchlists and change alerts.
Use OpenCorporates when
- Your subject is a company, not a charity: for legal-entity lookups it is the largest open database there is.
- You are mapping corporate networks: officers, addresses, and incorporation data across 290+ registers.
- You need company data at scale under a clear licence, via self-serve API, Enterprise SFTP, or share-alike attribution.
- You qualify for its public-benefit access: journalists, NGOs, universities, and anti-corruption researchers get free at-scale use.
Use both when
You are doing due diligence on a nonprofit and the entities around it. Check the charity on GiveRadar: integrity assessment, red flags, filings, officers. Then check related legal entities on OpenCorporates: a trading subsidiary, a founder's other companies, a corporate donor. Charity regulators and corporate registries are separate record systems, and no single tool reads both, so the pairing is stronger than either alone.
Is GiveRadar an OpenCorporates alternative?
First, the honest note: if your question is about companies, GiveRadar is not an OpenCorporates alternative at all. GiveRadar holds no corporate registry data, no shareholder or ownership records, and no non-charity legal entities. For legal-entity research, OpenCorporates remains the reference open database, and its free web search plus free at-scale access for journalists, NGOs, universities, and anti-corruption researchers means cost is rarely the reason to leave.
GiveRadar is the right tool when the entity you are researching is a charity and OpenCorporates comes back thin: a bare incorporation record with no charity filings, no financials, and no way to judge disclosure. That gap is by scope, not neglect. GiveRadar covers 7.9 million+ nonprofits in 100+ countries from 50+ official sources, scores each one's disclosure with a 0-100 integrity assessment, flags high executive pay, stale filings, and bare-minimum disclosure, and offers a REST API and MCP server with free tiers. For charities, start here; for the companies around them, keep OpenCorporates open.
GiveRadar and OpenCorporates: common questions
Is GiveRadar an OpenCorporates alternative?
Only for charities. OpenCorporates is a database of companies and legal entities, 200M+ records from corporate registries in 140+ jurisdictions (as of July 2026), and GiveRadar holds none of that: no ownership data, no non-charity entities. What GiveRadar covers is the population OpenCorporates does not: 7.9 million+ nonprofits across 100+ countries, sourced from charity regulators and tax authorities, each scored with a 0-100 integrity assessment that measures disclosure and cannot be bought. If your subject is a nonprofit, GiveRadar is the specific tool; if it is a company, stay with OpenCorporates.
Is OpenCorporates or GiveRadar better?
They cover different populations, so neither is better; they answer different questions. OpenCorporates is better for legal-entity research: raw corporate registry records, officers, and incorporation data across 290+ registers (as of July 2026), unscored by design. GiveRadar is better for charity research: integrity assessments, red flags, financial filings, officer compensation where disclosed, peer context, and change alerts across 100+ countries. The honest steer: pick by entity type, and use both when a case crosses the corporate-nonprofit line.
Is OpenCorporates free?
Web search is free. The commercial API is self-serve from 2,250 GBP per year (500 calls/month) up to 12,000 GBP per year, with custom Enterprise plans delivering bulk data via SFTP (pricing as of July 2026). Two important exceptions: investigative journalists, NGOs, universities, and anti-crime-and-corruption research groups get free at-scale access, and open-data projects can use the data under share-alike attribution licensing. GiveRadar, by comparison, is free for everyone, including API and MCP server free tiers.
Does OpenCorporates cover charities?
Only incidentally. OpenCorporates sources data from official corporate and business registries, such as Companies House and US state Secretaries of State, so a charity appears only if it is also incorporated as a legal entity, and then only as its corporate record: no charity-status flag, no charity filings, no financial transparency data from charity regulators. For charity-specific records, GiveRadar draws on charity regulators and tax authorities in 100+ countries and shows provenance for every data point.
Other charity data tools compared
Check any charity's disclosure record, free
Search 7.9M+ nonprofits in 100+ countries. For the companies around them, keep OpenCorporates open.