Free APIs You Can Use for Testing
At Apipheny, we use APIs a lot.
But we find that a lot of APIs are locked behind a paywall, which can make API testing a bit difficult to do — luckily, free APIs do exist.
With the help of a free API, you can do testing and create flexible, powerful apps in record time.
With a quick Google search, you’ll discover tens of thousands of free and open APIs — all well-made and easily accessible to developers all over the world.
But with so many APIs to choose from, looking for one that fits your needs can be incredibly time-consuming.
So we combed the web with a simple goal in mind — to make a comprehensive list of the best free APIs.
Check them out below.
Top 15 Free APIs Without Key or Authentication
Most APIs require access via API keys (similar to passwords) or other methods of authentication and authorization. Keys are a way to protect the provider from malicious users and help them manage their API better.
But for beginners still exploring APIs, keys tend to complicate things. Luckily, there’s APIs with zero authentication requirements.
An API without a key is perfect for beginners and web developers looking to access sample data sets for their apps without restrictions.
Here are a few of the best, unrestricted, free APIs with no key that you can use for testing. Because they don’t require any keys, you can test the sample URLs out on the address bar of your browser.
👉 If you want to try an easy-to-use API tool to test these APIs, check out Apipheny, an API integrator for Google Sheets. Click here to learn more about Apipheny.
1. Public APIs
Get a list of any or all public APIs currently cataloged in the project.
Sample API URL:
https://api.publicapis.org/entries
2. Cat Facts
Get random cat facts via text message every day.
Sample API URL:
https://catfact.ninja/fact
3. CoinDesk
View the Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) in real-time.
Sample API URL:
https://api.coindesk.com/v1/bpi/currentprice.json
4. Bored
Bored is a free API to find something to do by getting suggestions for random activities.
Sample API URL:
https://www.boredapi.com/api/activity
5. Agify.io
Predict the age of a person based on their name.
Sample API URL:
https://api.agify.io?name=meelad
6. Genderize.io
Predict the gender of a person based on their name.
Sample API URL:
https://api.genderize.io?name=luc
7. Nationalize.io
Predict the nationality of a person based on their name.
Sample API URL:
https://api.nationalize.io?name=nathaniel
8. Data USA
Get US public data (e.g., population data, etc.).
Sample API URL:
https://datausa.io/api/data?drilldowns=Nation&measures=Population
9. Dogs
Cheer yourself up with random dog images.
Sample API URL:
https://dog.ceo/api/breeds/image/random
10. IPify
IPify is a free API that allows you to get your current IP address.
Sample API URL:
https://api.ipify.org?format=json
11. IPinfo
Get information about a specified IP address, such as geological info, company, and carrier name.
Sample API URL:
https://ipinfo.io/161.185.160.93/geo
12. Jokes
Get random jokes. You can also get jokes according to type (e.g., programming jokes only).
Sample API URL:
https://official-joke-api.appspot.com/random_joke
13. RandomUser
Get information about a random fake user, including gender, name, email, address, etc.
Sample API URL:
https://randomuser.me/api/
14. Universities List
Get a list of universities in a specified country.
Sample API URL:
http://universities.hipolabs.com/search?country=United+States
15. Zippopotam
Get information about a specified ZIP code.
Sample API URL:
https://api.zippopotam.us/us/33162
Top 15 Free Entertainment APIs
👉 If you want to try an easy-to-use API tool to test these APIs, check out Apipheny, an API integrator for Google Sheets. Click here to learn more about Apipheny.
1. Imgur
Imgur has a free API that you can use to do anything you can do on Imgur.com.
2. YouTube to MP4
An easy-to-grasp API that lets you input a YouTube video URL and fetch its source location.
3. Yoda Translator
Convert English into Yoda speak.
4. IMDB – Internet Movie Database (Unofficial)
Fetch film data and search results from IMDB’s film database.
5. Movie Database (IMDB Alternative)
Access information, pictures, and more from a movie database — a decent alternative to IMDB.
6. Hearthstone
You can use the Hearthstone API for free to pull up-to-date data directly from Hearthstone.
7. Meme Generator
Choose a pre-loaded image, input top and bottom text, and enjoy your freshly generated meme.
8. Tic Tac Toe
Get Tic Tac Toe (AKA Noughts and Crosses) move suggestions.
9. Chart Lyrics
Get and add lyrics, or search for lyric information.
10. Text Similarity Calculator
Calculate the similarity between two texts in percentage through approximate string matching.
11. Robohash Image Generator
Generate a random and cool-looking robot image for your text.
12. Mirror-AI
Get AI-personalized avatars, emojis, and sticker packs by uploading photos.
13. Love Calculator
Find out the love compatibility of you and your partner based on your names.
14. SimSimi Conversation
Create a chatbot in 5 minutes.
15. Daily Comicstrips
Get links to the most popular comic strips — Garfield, Dilbert, Peanuts, and more.
Top 15 Free Sports APIs
👉 If you want to try an easy-to-use API tool to test these APIs, check out Apipheny, an API integrator for Google Sheets. Click here to learn more about Apipheny.
1. API-BASKETBALL
This free API allows you to get basketball data on major and minor competitions such as live score, standings, teams, odds, etc.
2. API-NBA
Get all NBA stats data including games, live score, players, seasons, leagues, etc.
3. API-FOOTBALL
Get data for over 630 football leagues & cups — Livescore (15s), pre-match odds, events, etc.
4. API-FORMULA-1
Get all data about Formula 1, including circuits, teams, drivers, rankings.
5. TheRundown
Get real-time odds, scores, stats, and insights into the sports betting marketplace.
6. Football Prediction
Get predictions for upcoming football matches, average bookie odds, results for past matches, and prediction performance statistics for past results.
7. MLB Data
Get baseball MLB data about players, teams, reports, and other stats.
8. Football Betting Tips
Get daily betting tips and a collection of the best bets for free.
9. FIFA World Cup
Get FIFA World Cup API data for free, including teams, rounds, and matches in JSON format.
10. Horse Racing
Get horse racing data for UK & Ireland races, including race name, distance, going, age, runners, etc.
11. Fitness Calculator
Calculate important values such as ideal weight and body fat percentage, or prepare macronutrient diets.
12. Tennis Odds
Get tennis odds from over 50 bookmakers, updated every 3 – 8 minutes.
13. Cricket Live Data API
Get fixtures, results, and scorecards for international and domestic cricket tournaments around the world.
14. Hockey-LIVE.sk Data
Get player statistics, game reports, game schedule, team standings, and team statistics for top hockey leagues and tournaments like NHL, IIHF World Championships, and Olympic Games.
15. MMA/UFC News
Get the latest news in the UFC and MMA world, updated every hour in an easy to access JSON format.
Top 15 Free API for Travel
👉 If you want to try an easy-to-use API tool to test these APIs, check out Apipheny, an API integrator for Google Sheets. Click here to learn more about Apipheny.
1. Hotels
Query rooms, price, facilities, policies, etc. information from many hotels around the world as on the official site.
2. Flight Data
Get travel insights for your site or blog, flight price trends, and find popular destinations for your customers.
3. TrailAPI
Get information and photos for tens of thousands of outdoor recreation locations including hiking and mountain biking trails, campgrounds, ski resorts, ATV trails, and more.
4. Great Circle Mapper
Calculate the air distance and flight time between all airports worldwide.
5. IATA and ICAO Codes
Get access to rich up-to-date airline datasets with this free API
6. Railway Trains – India
Look up Indian Railway Trains by train name or number
7. Airbnb.com
Get real-time, short-term, rental data from Airbnb.
8. Best Booking.com Hotel
Fetch the best booking.com hotel in town.
9. Gas Price
Reach gasoline and diesel prices in different fuel stations in different cities.
10. Indian Railway PNR Status
Get Indian Railway PNR details in JSON format.
11. BART
Get access to all the BART service and station data available on the BART website.
12. Multimodal Trip Planner
Get routing and turn-by-turn directions for driving, cycling, walking, or multimodal public transportation.
13. Indonesian Train Schedule – Jadwal Kereta
Get train schedules for up to 5 Indonesian train origin-destinations.
14. Sentiment Analysis 2.0 for Hotel Reviews
Get 90% – 95% accurate sentiment analysis data for hotel reviews, including client loyalty, hotel opinions, location opinions, etc.
15. BikeTheT
Find out if you can take your bike on the MBTA.
Top 15 Free Data APIs
👉 If you want to try an easy-to-use API tool to test these APIs, check out Apipheny, an API integrator for Google Sheets. Click here to learn more about Apipheny.
1. Crunchbase
Build powerful applications and integrate Crunchbase into your web and mobile applications.
2. Web Search
Get a list of relevant results from a search query that includes images, news, and related searches.
3. GeoDB Cities
Get basic info about cities, counties, regions, and countries throughout the world.
4. Google Play Store
See up to date reviews, ratings and rankings for products on the Google Play Store! An easy to use web service that retrieves current product details from Google Play Store.
5. Weather
Get access to current weather data or historical weather data with this free API for weather. This weather API requires a key.
6. Whois Lookup
Get up-to-minute results by pulling records from origin Whois servers in real-time.
7. WordsAPI
Get information about English words, including definitions, synonyms, rhymes, pronunciation, syllables, and frequency of usage, or find out about the relationships between words.
8. Referential
The fastest API to access countries, states, cities, continents, dial and zip codes in up to 20 languages.
9. URL Shortener Service
Create a short new URL from a long URL
10. IP Geolocation – IPWHOIS.io
Filter out bot traffic, customize content based on visitor’s location, display full country names, perform bulk IP geolocation, and more.
11. COVID-19 Data
Get live information on COVID-19 from reliable sources like Johns Hopkins CSSE, CDC, WHO, and others.
12. Quotes
Get random quotes in various languages from best-rated quotes from QuotePark.com.
13. Company Name Match
Identify redundant or duplicate customer information within a database or CRM system as a basis for matching records when combining multiple data sources, or as a searching mechanism to find “similar” results of company names using the similarity keys as the basis for a match.
14. Mashvisor
Access all the endpoints you need to build your application on top of Mashvisor Inc.
15. Rent Estimate
Get accurate and current estimated rent for a property, based on millions of records in Realty Mole’s real estate property database.
Top 15 Free Finance APIs
👉 If you want to try an easy-to-use API tool to test these APIs, check out Apipheny, an API integrator for Google Sheets. Click here to learn more about Apipheny.
1. Bloomberg Market and Financial News
Query all information about indices, commodities, currencies, futures, rates, bonds, etc. as on the official Bloomberg website.
2. Alpha Vantage
Get real-time and historical data on stocks, forex (FX), and cryptocurrencies/digital currencies.
3. BraveNewCoin
Get the latest details for an asset refreshed every 5 minutes with the global USD spot price, 24-hour volume, and supply, or end-of-day open, high, low, close prices and volumes (OHLCV) for market-weighted averages (MWA) or global weighted averages (GWA).
4. Morningstar
The Morningstar free API allows you to query common stock fundamentals and other data from the Morningstar website transformed into a convenient JSON format.
5. Currency Converter
Convert one currency to another, with support for 148 currencies worldwide based on the data provided by Central Banks.
6. Stock and Options Trading Data Provider
Get real-time Options and Stock data for United States-listed options in easy to consume JSON format.
7. Yahoo Finance
Query all information about finance summary, stocks, quotes, movers, etc. as on the official Yahoo Finance website.
8. Currency
Get accurate and reliable currency exchange rates for over 150 currencies.
9. Option Chain
Get option chain and stock data in easy to consume JSON format.
10. Financial Modeling Prep
Get all companies’ financial reports, company stock prices in real-time.
11. Latest Mutual Fund NAV
Get the latest NAV information of all mutual funds in India from the Association of Mutual Funds of India (AMFI).
12. Breaking News
This free breaking news API allows you to get news from across the globe and information on the latest breaking business and financial news.
13. Gold Price – Live
Get the current latest price of gold and silver in US dollars per ounce.
14. Mortgage Payments
Calculate monthly mortgage payments, including principal and interest, taxes, homeowners insurance, and mortgage insurance.
15. Global Ethereum Price Index – GEX
Get GEX data for 165+ currencies dating back to 2010 in easy to consume JSON format.
How to use Free APIs
The easiest way to manage and execute the APIs listed above is to use Postman. It’s a popular API client where you can quickly and easily create, test, and document APIs.
If you regularly work with Google Sheets and want to streamline your workflow, you can also use Apipheny. It’s a universal API integrator that can connect thousands of APIs to Google Sheets in just a few clicks — no scripts, no coding.
Import free API data directly into Google Sheets
Do a lot of copy-pasting?
We used to, as well.
But it took up too much of our time.
Introducing Apipheny, a Google Sheets add-on that lets you import data directly into Google Sheets — and save up to an hour of your workday.
It lets you connect any API to Google Sheets — in just a matter of seconds.
This means you can now import data directly from your favorite data sources — and finally stop switching between tabs with your fingers stuck on Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V.
Here’s Apipheny CEO & Co-Founder, Meelad, showing you just how easy it is to use the add-on.
Apipheny lets you do the following things:
- Skip the scripting & coding part of APIs.
- Retrieve and send data from your favorite data sources easily, using the GET & POST request feature.
- Access virtually any REST API, whether it’s JSON or CSV.
- Get the data you need in a nice, clean, list on your spreadsheet with the JSON converter.
- Save time by automating your API calls with the Save and Schedule features.
Just try it out. Trial’s free. No credit card needed.
Learn more about APIs by reading these next:
- What is an API?
- Google Sheets API Guide
- What is a GET Request?
- What is a POST Request?
- What is an API URL Path?
- What are API Parameters?
- What is an API Endpoint?
- What are API Headers?
Free API FAQs
Frequently asked questions about Free APIs.
What are APIs?
API stands for Application Programming Interface.
A free API is a type of interface that allows one (or multiple) software to communicate with another.
Similar to how a User Interface (UI) allows a user to communicate with software (man-to-machine), an API allows software to communicate with other software (machine-to-machine).
Are all APIs free to use?
Many APIs are free to use, like the ones above. These are called Free APIs (which are different from Freemium APIs). But not all APIs are free. Depending on the importance of the data or functionality given access to by an API, it will be limited in several ways. It might be exclusive to an organization (Internal APIs) or a partnership (Partner APIs), or it might be locked behind a paywall.
What is a Free API?
Free APIs are APIs exposed to the public at no cost. Developers can use them for whatever projects they like without having to pay a fee. They are sometimes called Open APIs or Public APIs.
What are Freemium APIs?
Unlike Free APIs which allow you to use them at zero cost, Freemium APIs limit your use up to a certain point. A Freemium API might let you request data 50 times per day, then charge you for any additional requests.
There are many ways a Freemium API can limit your access, such as only allowing you “x” number of requests per day or restricting certain types of data from you. You can gain more access by subscribing to the provider’s API service.
How can I access a free API?
If an API is free, it will be immediately available on the provider’s website. All you must do is search the provider’s name followed by “API” (e.g., “Twitter API”). The provider will likely have a dedicated set of pages on their website which talks about their API.
These dedicated pages are typically located under a “developer” subdomain (e.g., developer.twitter.com) and will include detailed documentation to help you get started with their API.
Some APIs will require you to register to the provider’s service, after which you will receive a Key & Secret or OAuth (similar to a Username & Password) to gain access. Some, however, are completely open.
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Crypto API Tutorials:
- Tutorials: Binance | Bitfinex | Bitmex | BscScan | Cardano | Coinbase | Coingecko | Coinmarketcap | CoinAPI | Coinranking | Etherscan | | Glassnode | Huobi | LiveCoinWatch | Kraken | Kucoin | Magic Eden | Messari | Nomics | OpenSea | PancakeSwap | Rarible | Rarify | Solanart
- Best Crypto APIs: list of the best APIs for cryptocurrency traders and devs