Health · head-to-head
CMS.gov vs Covid Tracking Project
CMS Provider Data Catalog exposes hundreds of Medicare quality, cost, and comparison datasets (hospitals, nursing homes, dialysis facilities, and more) through a DKAN-based metastore and datastore API that returns JSON by default and CSV on request, with no signup required. A live GET against the dataset-listing and datastore query endpoints succeeds with no credentials. A live Origin-header probe against the datastore query endpoint returns no Access-Control-Allow-Origin header on either a GET or an OPTIONS preflight, and since access needed no key at all, the stored 'API Key' auth was corrected to 'None'.
The COVID Tracking Project's public archive API, serving the US state- and national-level testing, hospitalization, and case/death time series the volunteer project compiled through early 2021. Data collection officially ended 2021-03-07 and the project shut down, but the JSON (v1/v2) and CSV endpoints continue to serve that final historical dataset unchanged since a 2021-06-01 build. A live GET against api.covidtracking.com returns Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *, correcting the stored 'no' cors to 'yes'.
| CMS.gov | Covid Tracking Project | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | None | None |
| Pricing | free | free |
| Formats | JSON, CSV | JSON, CSV |
| CORS | no | yes |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |
Covid Tracking Project supports CORS, while CMS.gov doesn't — pick Covid Tracking Project for direct browser calls.