Health · head-to-head
CMS.gov vs LAPIS
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'.
LAPIS is the open, keyless REST API behind covSPECTRUM, serving aggregated counts, sequence details, and mutation queries over SARS-CoV-2 genomic data drawn from public sources like GenBank and Nextstrain, documented via an OpenAPI v2 endpoint at lapis.cov-spectrum.org. The frontend's old ETH Zurich domain, cov-spectrum.ethz.ch, now 301-redirects permanently to cov-spectrum.org — 'url' corrected to the live domain. A live GET against lapis.cov-spectrum.org/open/v2/ returns Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *, reconfirming the stored 'yes' cors.
| CMS.gov | LAPIS | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | None | None |
| Pricing | free | free |
| Formats | JSON, CSV | JSON |
| CORS | no | yes |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |
LAPIS supports CORS, while CMS.gov doesn't — pick LAPIS for direct browser calls.