This guide is for a data or product lead who builds on Coresignal and is weighing other sources. It splits a Coresignal workload into three parts, company records, employee records and job postings, says which kind of source fits each, and maps the company and jobs parts to Fokals datasets, data point by data point and measure by measure.
The two products are built around different units. Coresignal is built around records from the public web: companies, professionals, job postings and social posts, as flat files or through APIs. Fokals is built around the company and what it does: firmographic, technographic, hiring and intent data on one company index, refreshed daily, with every observation dated and every dataset joined on one stable company ID.
What Coresignal offers, as documented
Coresignal's website presents company, employee, jobs and social posts data, which you can choose as flat files or through APIs. Its documentation says the datasets are collected from public web sources and come in up to three processing levels: Base data as collected and structured, Clean data derived from Base, and Multi-source data that combines several sources.
- Company data. The company page lists firmographics, technographics, workforce figures, financials such as revenue and funding, web traffic, reviews and news.
- Employee data. The employee page describes profiles of professionals: name, location, positions held, education and skills.
- Jobs data. The jobs page describes postings from job boards, company websites and applicant tracking systems, merged across sources into one record in its Multi-source dataset, with active and expired listings archived since 2020.
Its list of sources names Glassdoor, Indeed, Owler, Docker Hub, the Chrome Web Store and Craft, and a source it describes as the largest professional network. The delivery page of the documentation says datasets come as JSONL, Parquet or CSV, by download link or uploaded to your cloud server (S3, Azure, Google Cloud and others), and that the APIs return JSON. The pricing page lists API plans sold by subscription with credits, and says the price of a dataset depends on contract length, locations and source tier.
What Coresignal is built for
Each line restates the pages linked above.
- Employee records. Profiles of professionals with name, location, positions held, education and skills.
- Postings merged across sources. Its Multi-source jobs dataset merges postings from job boards, company websites and applicant tracking systems into one record, and the description text is part of the job record.
- An archive. Its site states company and employee data since 2016, and active and expired job listings archived since 2020.
- Files in your cloud. Datasets come as JSONL, Parquet or CSV, by download link or uploaded to your cloud server.
- API plans with credits. Its pricing page lists API plans sold by subscription with credits.
Why teams look for an alternative
The reasons are about scope and fit.
- Company-level data throughout. A product, a client contract or an internal policy that admits company-level data only.
- The company as the source. A need for records drawn from what the company itself publishes, announces and files, each carrying the time it was observed.
- Dated events and scores. A dated event for every technology adoption and removal, evidence-backed intent scores by topic, announcements by event type and weekly Market Series are datasets in their own right, beside a jobs feed.
- Point-in-time use. A back-test needs daily and weekly datasets that are written once after the period closes and never revised.
- Security identifiers. A fund joins on ticker, ISIN, LEI or FIGI, with a brand carrying the identifiers of its listed parent.
- Licence fit. Terms for embedding in a product or for redistribution, agreed directly with the vendor.
Coresignal and Fokals side by side
The Coresignal column repeats what the pages linked above state. The Fokals column follows the data dictionary.
| Coresignal | Fokals | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Company, employee, jobs and social posts data from public web sources | Firmographic, technographic, hiring, intent and announcement data on one company index, with weekly Market Series |
| Sources | Public web sources, in up to three processing levels: Base, Clean and Multi-source | First-party company sources and public records, processed in-house |
| Workforce | Employee records: name, experience, education, skills | Employee Headcount over time, Hiring Activity by job function, seniority and country, and leadership changes with the role concerned |
| Job postings | Job boards, company websites and applicant tracking systems, merged across sources, with the description text part of the job record | Every role a company publishes on its own careers pages, labelled by job function, seniority and ten role flags, with location, work mode, advertised pay and the tools named |
| Company attributes | Firmographics, workforce, revenue, funding, web traffic, reviews | Security identifiers, Employee Headcount, Web Traffic, Website Profile, Technology Stack, Company Funding and Company News |
| Delivery | APIs; flat files by download link or upload to your cloud server (S3, Azure, Google Cloud and others) | REST API of 25 endpoints; bulk files with a manifest, delivered direct |
| File formats | JSONL, Parquet or CSV | JSON, JSON Lines or CSV |
| Licensing | API plans with credits on a public pricing page; dataset price depends on contract length, locations and source tier | Written agreement for internal use, embedding in a product or redistribution |
The company part: dataset by dataset
Coresignal's company page names its data points under headings that run from main company information to products. Taking the points in turn shows the Fokals dataset that delivers each one.
| Coresignal data point | Fokals dataset | What it delivers |
|---|---|---|
| Technographics | Technology Stack, Technology Changes | The technologies each company runs, with first-seen and last-seen dates, and a dated event for every adoption, removal and platform migration |
| Headcount changes | Employee Headcount | Stated headcount over time, each figure with the date it refers to |
| Funding | Company Funding, Company News | Private capital raises reported in regulatory filings, and the funding announcements companies make |
| Key executives and employee change events | Company News | Leadership changes as an event type, each with the role concerned |
| Web traffic | Web Traffic | The monthly traffic tier of each website |
| News articles | Company News | Company announcements and regulatory disclosures, classified into 13 event types |
Revenue, competitors, company reviews and product pricing are further points on Coresignal's page, and part of what its company dataset is built for. On the Fokals side the same company ID also carries Website Profile, with the markets, languages, currencies, apps and key pages of each website, weekly Intent Scores with the evidence behind each score, the daily feed of Company Signals, and the weekly Market Series. A listed company carries its ticker, MIC, ISIN, LEI and share-class FIGI, and its SEC CIK where it has one.
Before you map a field, read each dataset's coverage on the companies you track: sample data is sent on request with the data dictionary and methodology.
The jobs part: measure by measure
Suppose your product shows hiring by company: open roles, new roles, the mix by function and advertised pay. On Fokals that is the hiring dataset, which is first-party hiring data: the roles each company publishes itself. Every measure in the product has a dataset that delivers it already built.
| Measure | Fokals dataset | What it delivers |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles per company and day | Hiring Activity | Open postings at the close of each day |
| New and closed roles | Hiring Activity | New and closed postings per day, counted from true openings |
| Mix by function and seniority | Hiring Activity, Job Postings | Open postings by job function and seniority, under a named, frozen label version |
| Mix by country and work mode | Hiring Activity | Open postings by country and by work mode |
| Advertised pay | Job Postings, Hiring Activity | Advertised pay on one annual US-dollar scale for each role, and the median per company |
| Tools named in postings | Job Postings, Hiring Activity | The tools named in each role, and daily counts of open postings naming each tool |
| Sales hiring and pay | Sales Team Metrics, Sales Pay Benchmarks | Weekly sales-organisation metrics per company, and pay quartiles for sales roles by role and country |
Run the two feeds side by side for a month before you switch, on a sample of accounts you know well. This query returns the Fokals side, keyed on website domain.
select m.domain, h.day, h.open_postings, h.new_postings, h.closed_postings
from company_hiring_daily h
join (select distinct domain, company_id from company_technologies) m
on m.company_id = h.company_id
where m.domain in (select domain from sample_accounts)
and h.day between date '2026-09-28' and date '2026-10-03';The counts will differ, and four properties of the record explain the difference.
- First-party postings. Hiring Activity counts the roles a company publishes itself, so each count is the company's own stated demand. A feed merged from several sources also carries roles advertised on job boards and through agencies.
- A first observation is a baseline. A posting already open when a company is first observed sets the baseline and is never counted as new, so the measure of new postings holds true openings.
- A closure is confirmed before it is written. A posting that drops out briefly and returns stays open in the record.
- Written once. Each day's counts are written once after the day closes and are never revised, so the comparison you run today returns the same figures next quarter.
An illustrative case: Acme Robotics, an invented company, shows 60 open roles in a feed built from several sources and 41 in Hiring Activity. If the difference is roles that agencies advertise, both numbers are right, and they answer different questions: every opening advertised anywhere, and the openings the company itself has published. A posting records an intention to hire, so read the series as demand for people, team by team and country by country. The article on why we read postings from the company's own board sets out the reasoning.
Other alternatives to Coresignal
Each part of the workload has its own kind of source.
- Workforce and profiles. Revelio Labs offers workforce data that brings together professional profiles, job postings, employee sentiment and layoff data.
- Job postings from employers. LinkUp sources job openings directly from employer websites every day and sells them as job market data.
- Jobs and technology use. TheirStack gathers job listings from company websites, job boards and other hiring platforms, and infers from them the technologies a company uses.
- Company signals. PredictLeads crawls company websites, news outlets and SEC filings, and offers job openings, technology detections and news events by API, flat file and webhook. The guide to PredictLeads alternatives compares it with Fokals.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Coresignal and Fokals?
Coresignal offers company, employee, jobs and social posts data from public web sources, with employee records of name, experience, education and skills. Fokals is company-level data throughout: firmographic, technographic, hiring and intent data on one company index, refreshed daily, with every observation dated. Each company has one stable company ID, and a listed company carries its ticker, MIC, ISIN, LEI and FIGI.
What is the difference between Coresignal jobs data and Fokals hiring data?
Coresignal describes its jobs data as postings from job boards, company websites and applicant tracking systems, merged across sources, with the description text. Fokals delivers every role a company publishes itself, labelled by job function, seniority and ten role flags, with location, work mode, advertised pay on one annual US-dollar scale and the tools named. Hiring Activity adds daily open, new and closed counts per company, written once after the day closes and never revised.
Is there a company data provider that works at company level only?
Yes. Fokals is company-level data throughout, sourced from first-party company sources and public records and processed in-house: what companies publish on their own websites and careers pages, what they announce, and what they file. A leadership change is delivered in Company News with the role concerned. That suits a product, a client contract or an internal policy that admits company-level data only, and the sourcing statement holds the detail a due-diligence review asks for.
How does Fokals deliver data, and in which formats?
Through a REST API of 25 endpoints and as bulk files of any dataset for any period in JSON, JSON Lines or CSV, either page by page through the export endpoints or as a package of files with a manifest naming the period, label versions and licence. The data is delivered direct, and you load it where you need it. Coresignal's documentation lists Parquet among its formats and upload to your cloud server among its delivery methods. The comparison of CSV, JSON Lines and Parquet covers the choice of format for a load, and the delivery page describes both routes.
How often is Fokals hiring data refreshed?
Daily. Job Postings and Hiring Activity are refreshed every day, and each day's counts are written once after the day closes and are never revised. Every posting carries its first-seen and last-seen dates, so the record can be read point-in-time, exactly as it stood on any day it covers. Labels are produced under named, frozen versions, and a breaking change ships as a new version with at least 90 days' notice.
Can Fokals data be joined to a Coresignal feed?
Yes. Key both on the company's website domain. Each domain resolves to one stable Fokals company ID, which every dataset carries, and listed companies also join on ticker, ISIN, LEI or FIGI. A team that keeps Coresignal for employee records can add Fokals for technology changes, intent scores, announcements and daily hiring activity on the same company list.
The queries and code on this page are examples to adapt. Test them in your own environment before you rely on them.
What this page says about the products it names was checked against their public documentation on 4 October 2026. Product and company names are trademarks of their owners. Fokals is not affiliated with them or endorsed by them.