Best Private Credit Fund Performance Databases: 2026 Guide

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Private credit performance data splits along a line that doesn't quite match private equity or venture: instead of pooled-fund benchmarks versus individual fund lookups, a lot of the industry's most-cited numbers come from BDC-derived loan indices — public filings from business development companies used as a proxy for the broader direct lending market. That's a useful shortcut, but it answers a different question than "how did this specific credit fund perform."

This guide compares the databases most commonly used to evaluate private credit fund performance in 2026, organized by how each one actually sources its numbers.

How Private Credit Performance Data Gets Built

• Pooled and anonymized, fund-reported. LPs or GPs report into a peer cohort, and the platform publishes an aggregate median or quartile by strategy and vintage.
• Loan-index, filings-derived. Rather than fund-level cash flows, an index is built from the underlying loan holdings disclosed in BDC SEC filings — a proxy for direct lending performance rather than a specific fund's own return.
• Individual and named. Performance is reported at the level of a specific, named fund, so a user can see exactly which fund produced a given Net IRR, TVPI, DPI, or RVPI.

Top Private Credit Fund Performance Databases

Joe Powered by Dakota

Joe, Powered by Dakota, is a private markets intelligence and performance platform built for institutional investors and investment professionals. It brings together fund performance, custom benchmarking, GP and sponsor intelligence, funds in market, portfolio company data, private company transactions, and market news in one connected platform.

Joe provides performance data for more than 18,000 named funds and vehicles, including Net IRR, TVPI, DPI, and RVPI for closed-end private market funds. Joe also includes returns for hedge funds, evergreen funds, and semi-liquid alternatives.

Users can evaluate individual fund performance, analyze a manager’s track record across fund vintages, and build custom peer groups by strategy, vintage year, geography, fund size, and other relevant criteria. Joe also enables users to identify funds currently raising capital and evaluate them alongside manager histories, investment strategies, portfolio companies, transaction activity, and allocator relationships.

Every record is reviewed by Joe’s research team, structured consistently, and updated in real time as new information becomes available. Users can search, compare, benchmark, and export data through the Joe platform, with additional access through API, MCP, and AI connectors.

Joe is available for $9,500 per year for up to five users, with transparent pricing and a straightforward purchasing process.

Best for: investment consultants, endowments and foundations, family offices, RIAs, institutional allocators, CIOs, secondaries investors, and GP investor relations teams conducting manager diligence, evaluating named-fund performance, benchmarking track records, and identifying funds currently raising capital.

If your diligence question is about one specific fund rather than an index or cohort average, it helps to see the difference directly. Request access to Joe.

Preqin

Preqin's private credit coverage benchmarks funds by strategy — direct lending, special situations, distressed, mezzanine — against a pooled, anonymized cohort segmented by vintage and geography, alongside its broader fundraising and investor data.

Preqin was acquired by BlackRock in 2024 for $3.2 billion (BlackRock, 2024), pairing its dataset with Aladdin and eFront. The credit benchmarking methodology remains cohort-based rather than fund-level.

Best for: benchmarking a private credit fund against a broad, anonymized strategy-and-vintage cohort.

PitchBook

PitchBook covers private credit fund performance alongside its LCD (Leveraged Commentary & Data) franchise, which is one of the most established sources for leveraged loan and syndicated credit market data. That combination is useful when a credit performance question overlaps with broader loan market pricing and spreads, not just fund-level returns.

Fund-level performance data sits inside the same broad platform architecture as PitchBook's equity and venture coverage, without the specialized verification a dedicated credit benchmarking provider applies.

Best for: teams who need private credit fund data alongside broader leveraged loan market pricing and terms.

Cliffwater

Cliffwater created the Cliffwater Direct Lending Index (CDLI), widely regarded as the first and most-cited benchmark for private credit. Rather than aggregating fund-level cash flows, CDLI is built from the SEC filings of eligible business development companies — public and non-traded — covering roughly 21,000 directly originated U.S. middle-market loans, reconstituted quarterly (Cliffwater, 2026).

That construction makes CDLI unusually transparent as an index — its loan-level holdings are drawn from public filings, not self-reported fund data — but it measures direct lending as an asset class through the BDC structure specifically, not the performance of any individual private credit fund by name.

Best for: a transparent, filings-derived benchmark for direct lending as an asset class.

Burgiss

Burgiss applies its LP cash-flow-derived methodology to private credit the same way it does across private markets, which gives its credit benchmarks a level of verification that self-reported cohorts don't have. The output remains a pooled, anonymized aggregate rather than a named fund lookup.

Best for: institutional-grade, cash-flow-verified private credit benchmarks.

Cambridge Associates

Cambridge Associates' private credit index is frequently cited in institutional asset allocation research and investment committee reporting, functioning as a reference line more than a database to query fund-by-fund.

Best for: investment committees that need a credible private credit benchmark index for manager evaluation.

KBRA DLD

KBRA DLD (Direct Lending Deals) focuses on deal-level transparency in private credit: covenant terms, pricing, and structure on individual direct lending transactions, sourced from rating-agency-grade due diligence rather than fund-level performance reporting. It's a useful complement when a question is really about deal terms and structure rather than a fund's aggregate return.

Best for: teams underwriting individual credit deals who need structure and covenant detail, not fund-level IRR.

Which Database Is Right for Your Team?

Private credit diligence often needs two different lenses at once: an asset-class index like CDLI to understand the macro backdrop, and an individual, named fund's own numbers to answer a manager-specific question. Joe is built for the second half of that question — the point where an index or pooled cohort stops being able to tell you what one specific fund has actually done.

For more information on Joe, request access.