I Tested 50+ Free APIs. These 20 Actually Work.
No broken endpoints. No surprise paywalls. No deprecated docs.
Data and Research
| API | What It Does | Key? | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAlex | 250M+ papers | No | 100K/day |
| Crossref | 140M+ DOIs | No | 50/sec |
| ORCID | 18M researchers | No | 24/sec |
| Semantic Scholar | 200M papers | Yes | 100/5min |
| Internet Archive | 800B web pages | No | Polite |
| Wikipedia | 60M+ articles | No | Polite |
Weather and Geo
| API | What It Does | Key? | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open-Meteo | Forecast + historical | No | 10K/day |
| Nominatim | Geocoding | No | 1/sec |
| OSRM | Routing | No | Fair use |
| ip-api.com | IP geolocation | No | 45/min |
Security
| API | What It Does | Key? | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| HIBP Passwords | Breach check | No | Unlimited |
| crt.sh | SSL certs | No | Polite |
| Shodan | Device search | Yes | 100/mo |
| VirusTotal | Malware scan | Yes | 4/min |
Developer Tools
| API | What It Does | Key? | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub | Repos, users | Yes | 5000/hr |
| npm Registry | Packages | No | Fair use |
| PyPI | Python pkgs | No | Fair use |
| Open Library | 20M+ books | No | Fair use |
Dead APIs (Skip These)
- Twitter/X: $100/month minimum
- NewsAPI: free tier = yesterday only
- Google Maps: $200 credit burns fast
- Alpha Vantage: 5 calls/minute = useless
Pattern
Best free APIs come from non-profits (Wikipedia, OSM), academia (OpenAlex, Crossref), and security community (HIBP). Companies always paywall eventually.
More from me: 10 Dev Tools I Use Daily | 77 Scrapers on a Schedule | 150+ Free APIs
Need web scraping or data extraction? I've built 77+ production scrapers. Email spinov001@gmail.com — quote in 2 hours. Or try my ready-made Apify actors — no code needed.
Top comments (0)