Provider Comparison / Lightcast alternatives
Lightcast Alternatives for Labor Market Data (2026)
Short answer: if you want Lightcast-style enrichment for US job postings without an enterprise contract, our pick is Canaria: classified, deduplicated postings with salary estimates and per-field confidence scores, from a free tier and $49 a month. For workforce dynamics built on profile data, Revelio Labs; for an employer-site archive back to 2007, LinkUp; for many countries in one feed, Techmap.
Canaria publishes this page and is one of the alternatives listed.
By the Canaria data team · Last verified September 15, 2026
What Lightcast offers
Lightcast is the most established name in labor market analytics. It covers 165+ countries, with US postings since 2010 and global postings since 2019. Its occupation taxonomy cross-walks to SOC, O*NET, ISCO-08, ESCO and NAICS, and its Open Skills taxonomy lists 34,000+ skills. Data ships by API, Snowflake and AWS marketplaces, BigQuery, Databricks and file delivery.
It does not publish prices; contracts are typically six figures a year. Its documentation describes salary as the advertised figure from postings and does not describe modeled salary estimates or a confidence score on each field. Budget, speed to start and those two features are the usual reasons teams compare alternatives.
Lightcast alternatives compared
| Provider | Choose it if you need | Salary | Entry price | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canaria (our pick) | Enriched US postings without an enterprise contract | Posted plus modeled, 95% intervals on benchmarks | Free tier; $49/month | US-primary; 244 countries and territories |
| Revelio Labs | Workforce dynamics from postings plus profiles | Modeled compensation | Enterprise contract | Global |
| LinkUp | An employer-site archive back to 2007 | Posted; modeled via partners | Enterprise contract | 195 countries |
| Techmap | Many countries in one schema | Not documented | Not published | 250 countries and territories |
| Coresignal | Raw multi-source records, self-serve | As captured from postings | $49/month | Global |
| TheirStack | Hiring and technology signals for sales | Not documented | Free tier; $49/month | 195 countries |
Details and sources for each provider are on our best job posting data providers page.
Lightcast vs Canaria, side by side
| Lightcast | Canaria | |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | 165+ countries | US-primary plus 243 other countries and territories |
| History | US 2010, global 2019 | 2022 onward |
| Occupation and industry codes | Proprietary taxonomy with cross-walks to SOC, O*NET, ISCO, ESCO, NAICS | SOC (867 codes) and NAICS-2022 (1,012 codes), with published accuracy |
| Skills | 34,000+ Open Skills | 43,000+ entry taxonomy (39,000+ skills, 3,300+ certifications) |
| Salary | Advertised salary from postings | Posted plus model estimates; 44,000+ benchmark cells with 95% intervals |
| Per-field confidence | Not described in its documentation | On occupation, industry, title, seniority, employment type and work mode |
| Worker type (W2 vs 1099) | Not described in its documentation | On 98.9% of postings |
| Deduplication | Cross-source, 60-day window | Two-stage semantic, one record per job |
| Pricing | Not published; typically six figures a year | Free tier; API from $49/month; flat files from $2,500/month |
Why teams choose Canaria instead
- Start this week, not next quarter. A free API tier, self-serve plans and a free 5,000-record sample instead of a procurement cycle.
- Salary you can put error bars on. Benchmarks fuse posted pay, reported pay and BLS OES data, each cell with a 95% confidence interval.
- Quality you can filter on. Per-field confidence scores, calibrated to the probability of being correct for occupation, industry and title.
- Fields few providers publish. Worker type (W2 vs 1099) and stock tickers for 7,889 listed employers.
When to stay with Lightcast
Lightcast remains the better fit if you need deep history outside the US, US postings before 2022, or its cross-walks to international occupation standards, as many public-sector and academic workforce planners do. The field-by-field comparison shows the full picture.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the best alternative to Lightcast?
- For US job postings data without an enterprise contract, Canaria. It delivers deduplicated postings with SOC occupation and NAICS industry codes, normalized titles, a 43,000+ entry skills taxonomy, salary estimates with 95% confidence intervals on its benchmarks, and per-field confidence scores, from a free tier and $49 a month. For workforce dynamics built on profile data choose Revelio Labs, for an employer-site archive back to 2007 LinkUp, and for many countries in one feed Techmap.
- Is there a cheaper alternative to Lightcast?
- Yes. Lightcast does not publish prices and sells enterprise contracts that are typically six figures a year. Canaria has a free API tier, API plans from $49 to $1,499 a month, and enriched flat-file subscriptions from $2,500 a month. Coresignal and TheirStack also start at $49 a month for raw or signal-focused data.
- Which Lightcast alternative has modeled salary data?
- Canaria and Revelio Labs both publish modeled compensation. Canaria fuses employer-posted pay, employee-reported pay and BLS OES data across 44,000+ SOC-by-state benchmark cells, each with a 95% confidence interval. Lightcast's documentation describes salary as the advertised figure from postings.
- When should I stay with Lightcast?
- When you need coverage across 165+ countries with global history since 2019, US history since 2010, or its occupation taxonomy's cross-walks to SOC, O*NET, ISCO-08, ESCO and NAICS, as public-sector and academic workforce planners often do.
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