Questions regarding about Alpaca

Hello Alpaca Community,

I just joined this community recently and have few questions regarding about Alpaca.

First, I was curious about how I can connect Alpaca with my broker such as TD Ameritrade or Robinhood. Or does Alpaca have its own broker so that I can use their own API to buy the stock? I was asking because I think Robinhood has limited amount of API calls…

Also, how can I get real live data for a stock (pre/post-market and on-market information such its current price in min/hour/day)? Is there an API to get those information? I have seen people connecting to tradingview but for me the data are very delayed.

Any help would be appreciated. I am glad that I have found out about Alpaca.
Thanks!

Alpaca is its own broker similar to Robinhood or TD Ameritrade. You open your brokerage account and deposit your money to your brokerage account at Alpaca to start trading stocks with your moey. Alpaca just provides API as a matter of interface in addition to mobile app or web dashboard.