6 ms·

A collection of free/public APIs you can use to build stuff

288 points by celue 5y ago

zerop 5y ago
Nice list. I looked at a few now. But since these are public/free APIs, I would be careful using them into production work, mainly for stability/scale reasons. Good for research/Prototype etc, IMO.
- Stevvo 5y ago
  Some free APIs run by governments provide fairly good stability as they fall under the umbrella of "critical infrastructure".
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  To help with the real time, could maybe add a layer of hot caching or the user could submit a batch job. if one fails, it's not blowing up the request.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > But since these are public/free APIs, I would be careful using them into production work, mainly for stability/scale reasons. Many of the ones I saw are "free up to N requests, then $". That is, things that have a free tier. Which is still valuable, but is very different if you want to be able to scale. Scaling by writing a larger check is a nice safe path forward.
butz 5y ago
Would be nice to see a column with request limit, if any.
stefanvdw1 5y ago
Nice list! I’ve used one of the art APIs listed, the Rijksmuseum one, to built a website which will show you a random object from their massive collection on each button click: https://randomrijks.com https://randomrijks.com
- LeonB 5y ago
  rijksroll is right there! (The .com is available) (Nice work though :))
asim 5y ago
Also see https://public-apis.io https://public-apis.io for a similar searchable listing of APIs.
nullify88 5y ago
Anyone know of a API to fetch high quality music artist and album art? I've been meaning to make something which sniffs whats playing on my Chromecast and display it on a screen but I've had difficulty finding a good source of art. Thank you for the suggestions :)
- OJFord 5y ago
  Spotify? Or is that not high quality enough? https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/ https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/referenc... (Or there's a bunch of others in the submission under 'music'.)
  - nullify88 5y ago
    When querying the chromecast for now playing media when using Spotify Connect, the response contains spotify album art urls. I haven't verified whether its the same as directly querying the spotify api but at first glance the images weren't as big as I'd like them to be. I'd also like a variety of artist images as a backdrop which is hit and miss. Thanks for the suggestion though.
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  I won't speak to the quality, but that's what libmusicbrainz is for: https://github.com/metabrainz/libmusicbrainz https://github.com/metabrainz/libmusicbrainz
- tfsh 5y ago
  Someone else mentioned Spotify, you could try looking into Last.fm[1] (which queries from a number of different sources - spotify, youtube, soundcloud and user contributed artwork). 1: https://www.last.fm/api/show/album.getInfo https://www.last.fm/api/show/album.getInfo - looks like it provides three image resolutions - small, medium and large.
- easrng 5y ago
  The iTunes has an amazing free API: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AudioVideo/Conceptual/iTuneSearchAPI/index.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Au... By default the images it returns are small but you can get the full res ones easily. Here's some example code (not mine): https://github.com/bendodson/itunes-artwork-finder/blob/master/api.php https://github.com/bendodson/itunes-artwork-finder/blob/mast...
willis936 5y ago
Obligatory link to the Tom Scott video on free APIs. There's a lot of common knowledge there, but his discussion on free APIs seems relevant. I've been burned by having hobbyist projects break from free APIs getting turned off. https://youtu.be/BxV14h0kFs0 https://youtu.be/BxV14h0kFs0
areoform 5y ago
Does anyone know about an API for getting high resolution book covers? Most of the book covers that are publicly out there are terrible.
egfx 5y ago
Anybody know of an API that allows you to generate a temporary static HTML page with custom markup that I can send to it?
- jjice 5y ago
  Like templating as a service?
- dariusj18 5y ago
  Sounds like a free hosting service with FTP
  - egfx 5y ago
    I was thinking something like pastebin. I don’t know if it’s capable of returning html. I think a gist could work however.
    - dariusj18 5y ago
      Oh yeah, github pages too
hibern8 5y ago
https://agify.io/ https://agify.io/ This was in the list. How is this useful at all?
- detaro 5y ago
  discrimination-as-a-service.
- funshed 5y ago
  The "Use Cases" are on the bottom of the page. Limited but..
- HWR_14 5y ago
  Isn't guessing ages (reliably) valuable to marketers?

288 points by celue 5y ago

Nice list. I looked at a few now. But since these are public/free APIs, I would be careful using them into production work, mainly for stability/scale reasons. Good for research/Prototype etc, IMO.

Stevvo 5y ago
Some free APIs run by governments provide fairly good stability as they fall under the umbrella of "critical infrastructure".
nickthemagicman 5y ago
To help with the real time, could maybe add a layer of hot caching or the user could submit a batch job. if one fails, it's not blowing up the request.
HWR_14 5y ago
> But since these are public/free APIs, I would be careful using them into production work, mainly for stability/scale reasons. Many of the ones I saw are "free up to N requests, then $". That is, things that have a free tier. Which is still valuable, but is very different if you want to be able to scale. Scaling by writing a larger check is a nice safe path forward.

butz 5y ago

Would be nice to see a column with request limit, if any.

stefanvdw1 5y ago

Nice list! I’ve used one of the art APIs listed, the Rijksmuseum one, to built a website which will show you a random object from their massive collection on each button click: https://randomrijks.com https://randomrijks.com

LeonB 5y ago
rijksroll is right there! (The .com is available) (Nice work though :))

asim 5y ago

Also see https://public-apis.io https://public-apis.io for a similar searchable listing of APIs.

nullify88 5y ago

Anyone know of a API to fetch high quality music artist and album art? I've been meaning to make something which sniffs whats playing on my Chromecast and display it on a screen but I've had difficulty finding a good source of art. Thank you for the suggestions :)

OJFord 5y ago
Spotify? Or is that not high quality enough? https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/ https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/referenc... (Or there's a bunch of others in the submission under 'music'.)
- nullify88 5y ago
  When querying the chromecast for now playing media when using Spotify Connect, the response contains spotify album art urls. I haven't verified whether its the same as directly querying the spotify api but at first glance the images weren't as big as I'd like them to be. I'd also like a variety of artist images as a backdrop which is hit and miss. Thanks for the suggestion though.
nonameiguess 5y ago
I won't speak to the quality, but that's what libmusicbrainz is for: https://github.com/metabrainz/libmusicbrainz https://github.com/metabrainz/libmusicbrainz
tfsh 5y ago
Someone else mentioned Spotify, you could try looking into Last.fm[1] (which queries from a number of different sources - spotify, youtube, soundcloud and user contributed artwork). 1: https://www.last.fm/api/show/album.getInfo https://www.last.fm/api/show/album.getInfo - looks like it provides three image resolutions - small, medium and large.
easrng 5y ago
The iTunes has an amazing free API: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AudioVideo/Conceptual/iTuneSearchAPI/index.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Au... By default the images it returns are small but you can get the full res ones easily. Here's some example code (not mine): https://github.com/bendodson/itunes-artwork-finder/blob/master/api.php https://github.com/bendodson/itunes-artwork-finder/blob/mast...

willis936 5y ago

Obligatory link to the Tom Scott video on free APIs. There's a lot of common knowledge there, but his discussion on free APIs seems relevant. I've been burned by having hobbyist projects break from free APIs getting turned off. https://youtu.be/BxV14h0kFs0 https://youtu.be/BxV14h0kFs0

areoform 5y ago

Does anyone know about an API for getting high resolution book covers? Most of the book covers that are publicly out there are terrible.

egfx 5y ago

Anybody know of an API that allows you to generate a temporary static HTML page with custom markup that I can send to it?

jjice 5y ago
Like templating as a service?
dariusj18 5y ago
Sounds like a free hosting service with FTP
- egfx 5y ago
  I was thinking something like pastebin. I don’t know if it’s capable of returning html. I think a gist could work however.
  - dariusj18 5y ago
    Oh yeah, github pages too

hibern8 5y ago

https://agify.io/ https://agify.io/ This was in the list. How is this useful at all?

detaro 5y ago
discrimination-as-a-service.
funshed 5y ago
The "Use Cases" are on the bottom of the page. Limited but..
HWR_14 5y ago
Isn't guessing ages (reliably) valuable to marketers?