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Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

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10 Free APIs for Data Extraction — No Authentication Required

#webdev #api #javascript #beginners

Not every data extraction project needs Playwright or Puppeteer. Many websites and platforms expose free, public APIs that return structured JSON — no authentication needed.

Here are 10 free APIs I use daily, wrapped into ready-to-use tools on Apify.

1. Reddit JSON API

Append .json to any Reddit URL. Returns posts, comments, scores.

https://reddit.com/r/startups.json
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Tool: Reddit Scraper

2. Google News RSS

Search any topic, get latest articles with sources and dates.

https://news.google.com/rss/search?q=artificial+intelligence
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Tool: Google News Scraper

3. YouTube Innertube API

Comments, captions, search results — no API key, no quotas.
Tool: YouTube Comments Scraper

4. Hacker News APIs

Firebase real-time API + Algolia full-text search.

https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=web+scraping
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Tool: HN Scraper

5. Bluesky AT Protocol

Full REST API for profiles, posts, followers. Decentralized and open.
Tool: Bluesky Scraper

6. Wikipedia API

Article content, summaries, search.

https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/summary/Web_scraping
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7. GitHub REST API

Repository data, trending repos, user profiles.

https://api.github.com/search/repositories?q=web+scraping&sort=stars
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8. Stack Overflow API

Questions, answers, tags — with pagination.

https://api.stackexchange.com/2.3/search?order=desc&sort=votes&intitle=web+scraping&site=stackoverflow
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9. arXiv API

Academic papers by keyword.

http://export.arxiv.org/api/query?search_query=all:web+scraping
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10. npm Registry API

Package search, metadata, download counts.

https://registry.npmjs.org/-/v1/search?text=web+scraping
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The Pattern

Most of these APIs share common traits:

  • No authentication — public data, public access
  • JSON responses — structured, easy to parse
  • Rate limits — reasonable (1-10 req/sec), not blocking
  • Stable — formats haven't changed in years

Before reaching for a headless browser, always check: does this site have a JSON API, RSS feed, or JSON-LD structured data? 80% of the time, the answer is yes.

All 77 tools using these APIs: GitHub | Apify Store

Custom data extraction — $20: Order via Payoneer

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