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Twitter Firehose API in 2026: Access, Price, Alternatives

The Twitter firehose API explained: firehose vs decahose, who sells them, why X lists no price, the filtered stream, and when a scheduled search is enough.


Published · Updated · 7 min read

Cover image: Do you need the firehose?

The Twitter firehose API is X's real-time stream of every public post, sold only on Enterprise contracts with no published price.

This guide is for developers and analysts who want X (Twitter) data as it happens. You get what each stream is and costs as of October 2026, and when a scheduled search is enough. We run Weir, which is not a firehose.

Before you call sales, see how busy your keyword is. This returns its newest matches; check how old the 20th post is:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.weirapp.io/v1/x/search \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $WEIR_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{"query":"your keyword","sort":"latest","limit":20}'
100%of public posts in the firehose
10%random sample in the decahose
$0.005per post on X's filtered stream
Nonepublished price for either stream

What is the Twitter firehose API?

The X firehose is the full stream of public posts, pushed to you as they're published. X's Enterprise page promises "100% of public posts in real-time. No sampling, no limits."

Here is how X's v2 reference sets it up:

  • One endpoint, "Stream all Posts," split into 20 partitions. Each partition is its own connection.
  • A short replay. After a drop, you can ask for up to 5 minutes of missed posts.
  • Language firehoses for English, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese posts.

Volume is the hard part. X's docs say "even the 1% stream can emit many dozens of Posts every second," and the firehose carries 100 times as much.

Firehose vs decahose: what's the difference?

The decahose is a random 10% sample of the firehose, also streamed live. X groups it with a 1% sampled stream as its "volume streams":

  • Firehose: every public post. You store and filter all of it.
  • Decahose: a random 10%, over 2 partitions. X pitches it for trends and sentiment.
  • 1% sampled stream: the lightest of the three, and still Enterprise-only.

None of them takes a keyword. X's Decahose page says the data "does not support additional filtering (e.g. for keywords)."

So a decahose can't find your brand's mentions. You filter its slice yourself.

Who sells the Twitter firehose today?

X sells it directly, and only on Enterprise. Its volume streams page is blunt: "you must first set up an account with our enterprise sales team."

It wasn't always so. Resellers such as DataSift and NTT Data once sold it too, until Twitter ended those deals in April 2015, InfoWorld reported. A third reseller, Gnip, was by then owned by Twitter.

How much does the Twitter firehose cost in 2026?

X publishes no price. Its Enterprise pricing page, checked on 22 October 2026, says plans are "custom-tailored" and points to "Contact sales for pricing."

What it does list is the shape of the deal:

  • Committed contracts, with "longer-term agreements and committed usage levels."
  • No post read cap, where pay-per-use stops at 3 million reads a month.
  • A named account manager and priority support.

The last public numbers are Twitter's 2023 Enterprise packages, which Wired reported from a document sent to researchers:

Enterprise packages reported by Wired, March 2023, per month
50M tweets$42,000
100M tweets$125,000
200M tweets$210,000

Those were capped packages, not the firehose, and X hasn't published a price since. Treat them as history, not a quote.

The filtered stream: the middle option on X's API

The filtered stream sends you only the posts that match your rules, in near real time, with no contract. It's part of X's pay-per-use API, as of October 2026:

  • Rules: up to 1,000 per project, each up to 1,024 characters.
  • Speed: about 4 to 5 seconds of latency at P99, X says.
  • Price: each unique post delivered counts as a post read, at $0.005, deduplicated daily.
  • Cap: 3 million post reads a month.

Rules use search operators. Here is X's own example:

(AI OR "machine learning") lang:en -is:retweet

Our X API pricing guide has the full rate card.

Need it faster? X's Powerstream has the lowest latency, but X offers it only "under select Enterprise plans."

Pick by how much of X you need, and how fast:

Option What you get Delay Price, Oct 2026 Best for
Firehose Every public post Real time Sales quote Data platforms
Decahose Random 10% Real time Sales quote Trend research
Filtered stream Posts matching rules About 4-5 s $0.005 per post Live alerts
Scheduled search About 20 per run Hourly or daily About 1 credit a post Brand and topics

If you can't name the words you need, you need a volume stream. If you can, start with a filtered stream or a scheduled search.

Scheduled search: the firehose alternative for most readers

Weir is not a firehose, and it doesn't stream. A Weir monitor runs X's keyword search on a schedule and keeps only what's new.

That sets hard limits, all from our docs:

  • About 20 posts per run. A search monitor reads one page of the newest matches, so a busier query loses the oldest between runs.
  • Hourly runs need a paid tier. Free accounts get 1 monitor, running daily or weekly.
  • A $5 purchase brings hourly runs and up to 10 monitors.
  • You pay per new post. A run costs 1 credit plus 1 per new result, so a quiet run costs 1.

We ran a newest-first search, the kind a monitor runs, on 22 October 2026: Moon posts from NASA, NASA Artemis, ESA and SpaceX, limit 3. It cost 4 credits. The newest result:

{
  "url": "https://x.com/NASAArtemis/status/2113019085659288030",
  "text": "“It’s crazy to look up and see the Moon far away again. ...",
  "createdAt": "2026-10-21T21:26:22.000Z",
  "likeCount": 640
}

The three posts spanned 30 hours, so a daily run would catch them all. Use the same test on your query.

If the 20th newest post is over an hour old, hourly runs keep up. If it's over a day old, daily runs do.

To set one up, post the query to /v1/monitors:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.weirapp.io/v1/monitors \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $WEIR_API_KEY" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{"name":"Moon news","target":{"kind":"search","query":"Moon","sources":["x"]},"schedule":"daily"}'

Narrow a busy query with a "quoted phrase", from: or min_faves:, as our hashtag tracker guide shows. The monitors docs cover webhooks.

Per post read, the options compare like this:

Price per 1,000 posts read, October 2026
X filtered stream$5.00
TwitterAPI.io$0.15
Weir, $5 to $1,000 packs$0.105 to $0.21

Price isn't the only difference. The stream delivers every match within seconds, and a monitor delivers at most 20 per run.

When not to use Weir

  • You need every post, or posts within seconds. Buy the firehose or use X's filtered stream.
  • Your query gets thousands of posts an hour. Twenty per run can't keep up, even hourly.
  • You need a contract with X. Only X sells its firehose.
  • You want a cheap live stream. TwitterAPI.io lists $0.15 per 1,000 tweets, and its filter rules can check as often as every 0.05 seconds.

Weir reads public data only and can't post. X's Terms of Service say you "cannot scrape the Services without X's express written permission," so check what applies to you. This isn't legal advice.

FAQ

Is the Twitter firehose API still available?

Yes, but only on X's Enterprise plans. X's docs list a full firehose, four language firehoses, and 1% and 10% sampled streams, all behind a sales conversation. Pay-per-use developers can't connect to them; the filtered stream is their closest option.

How much does the Twitter firehose cost?

X publishes no price as of October 2026, and its Enterprise page says to contact sales. The last public figures, from Wired in March 2023, started at $42,000 a month for capped tweet volumes. X hasn't confirmed a price since.

What is the Twitter decahose?

A random 10% sample of all public posts, streamed live. X sells it on Enterprise plans, split into 2 partitions, and you can't filter it by keyword. X pitches it for tracking trends and general sentiment, where a sample is enough.

Is there a cheaper Twitter firehose alternative?

For known keywords, X's filtered stream sends every match within seconds at $0.005 per post. If an hourly or daily batch is enough, a scheduled search costs less: a Weir monitor reads about 20 new posts per run, at 1 credit each.

Sources

All checked on 22 October 2026:

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