I spent the last month testing free tiers of every major developer API. Not the "free trial for 14 days" kind. The actually-free, no-credit-card, use-it-in-production kind.
Here are 22 APIs that are genuinely free, with enough quota to build real apps.
Databases
MongoDB Atlas — Free 512MB Cloud Database
512MB storage, full MongoDB API, Atlas Search, Charts. Shared cluster on AWS/GCP/Azure. Never expires.
Neon — Free Serverless Postgres
512MB Postgres with git-like branching, auto-scaling to zero, serverless driver for edge functions.
PlanetScale — Serverless MySQL
MySQL with schema branching and zero-downtime migrations. Built on Vitess (same tech as YouTube). Scaler plan from $39/mo.
Supabase — Free Postgres + Auth + Storage
Full backend: Postgres database, authentication, file storage, real-time subscriptions, edge functions. 500MB database, 1GB file storage.
Firebase — Free Backend Suite
Firestore, Realtime Database, Authentication, Hosting, Cloud Functions, Storage. 1GB Firestore, 10GB hosting.
Upstash — Free Serverless Redis
10,000 commands/day, 256MB storage. REST API works from edge functions. Includes QStash message queue.
Turso — Free Edge SQLite
9GB storage, 500 databases, embedded replicas with microsecond reads. Built on libSQL, SQLite for the distributed web.
Search
Algolia — Free Instant Search
10K records, 10K requests/month. Typo tolerance, faceting, highlighting. Pre-built React/Vue widgets.
Auth & Security
Auth0 — Free Authentication
25,000 monthly active users. Social login, MFA, passwordless, RBAC. SDKs for every framework.
Media & Files
Cloudinary — Free Image/Video API
25GB storage + bandwidth. URL-based transformations: resize, crop, format conversion, background removal. Global CDN.
Object Storage
Cloudflare R2 — Free S3-Compatible Storage
10GB storage, 10M reads/month. S3-compatible API. Zero egress fees — serve files globally for free.
SendGrid — Free Email API
100 emails/day forever. Templates, analytics, deliverability tools.
Resend — Free Modern Email API
3,000 emails/month. Write templates in React. Modern DX with webhooks and custom domains.
Communication
Twilio — Free Trial API
$15 trial credit. SMS, voice calls, WhatsApp, video. SDKs for 7 languages.
Slack — Free API
Build bots, send messages, manage channels. Webhooks and OAuth.
Telegram — Free Bot API
Completely free. No rate limits for most use cases. Inline keyboards, groups, channels.
Payments
Stripe — Free API
No monthly fee. Pay only when you process payments (2.9% + 30c). Test mode is completely free.
AI & Machine Learning
OpenAI — Free API Tier
$5 free credits for new accounts. GPT-4o mini, DALL-E, Whisper, embeddings.
Claude AI — Free API Tier
$5 free credits. Claude 3.5 Sonnet for coding and analysis. 200K token context window.
Maps & Location
Mapbox — Free Tier
50K map loads/month. Interactive maps, geocoding, navigation, satellite imagery.
Deployment
Vercel — Free Tier
100GB bandwidth, serverless functions, edge functions, preview deployments. Perfect for Next.js.
Productivity
Notion — Free API
Full CRUD on pages, databases, blocks. Build dashboards, automate workflows, query databases.
GitHub — Free API
5,000 requests/hour (authenticated). Search repos, manage issues, automate workflows.
Science & Data
NASA — Free API
Mars rover photos, asteroid data, astronomy picture of the day, satellite imagery. No rate limits with API key.
Monitoring
Grafana Cloud — Free Metrics, Logs, Traces
10,000 metrics, 50GB logs, 50GB traces. Pre-built dashboards for K8s, Docker, Node.js. 14-day retention.
Error Tracking
Sentry — Free Error Tracking
5,000 errors/month, 10,000 performance transactions. Stack traces, breadcrumbs, release tracking. 100+ integrations.
Clerk — Free Drop-In Auth with UI
10,000 MAU. Pre-built sign-in/sign-up components, organizations, MFA. Zero custom UI code needed.
Edge Computing
Deno Deploy — Free Edge Runtime
1M requests/month, 100K KV operations/day. Deploy TypeScript globally in seconds. Built-in KV database, zero config, instant deployments from GitHub.
Deployment & Hosting
Fly.io — Free Global Deployment
3 shared VMs, 160GB bandwidth, anycast networking. Deploy to multiple regions with one command. Private networking + auto TLS included.
Railway — Free $5 Monthly Credit
One-click PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis. Auto-deploy from GitHub. $5/month credit covers ~500 hours. No Dockerfile needed.
Render — Free Static Sites + Web Services
750 hours/month web services, unlimited static sites with CDN. Free PostgreSQL (90 days). The Heroku replacement most devs chose.
Netlify — Free 100GB Bandwidth + Serverless Functions
100GB bandwidth, 125K function invocations, 100 form submissions. Deploy previews, split testing, global CDN. Perfect for JAMstack.
Vercel — Free Frontend Hosting + Edge Functions
100GB bandwidth, edge functions, KV/Postgres/Blob storage. Built-in analytics. Zero-config for Next.js, React, Vue, Svelte, and 30+ frameworks.
Cloudflare Workers — Free 100K Requests/Day at the Edge
100K requests/day at 300+ edge locations. KV storage, R2 (S3-compatible), D1 (SQLite at edge). Sub-50ms globally.
GitHub Actions — Free 2,000 CI/CD Minutes
2,000 min/month (unlimited for public repos). Matrix builds, reusable workflows, 15,000+ marketplace actions. Replace Jenkins/CircleCI for free.
PocketBase — Free Backend in a Single Binary
Auth, database, realtime, file storage in one 15MB binary. SQLite-powered, open-source. The Firebase alternative you own.
Hetzner — Cheapest VPS With Free Trial Credits
2 vCPU, 4GB RAM, 40GB NVMe, 20TB bandwidth for 3.79 EUR/month. 20 EUR trial credits.
MinIO — Free Self-Hosted S3-Compatible Storage
100% S3 API compatible. Unlimited storage on your hardware. Erasure coding, versioning, encryption. Zero egress fees.
Coolify — Free Self-Hosted PaaS
Git-push deploys, one-click databases, auto SSL. Heroku experience on your own VPS. Open-source Apache 2.0.
Docker Hub — Free Container Registry
Unlimited public repos, automated builds, 200 pulls/6hr. The default registry for 20M+ developers.
Analytics
Plausible — Free Privacy-First Analytics
No cookies, 1KB script, GDPR compliant. Self-host free. Real-time dashboard, goal tracking, API access.
Umami — Free Open-Source Analytics
MIT licensed, 2KB script, no cookies. Track unlimited sites. Custom events, teams, full REST API. Deploy to Vercel free.
Automation
n8n — Free Self-Hosted Workflow Automation
400+ integrations, visual builder, AI agents, webhooks. The free Zapier alternative you self-host.
CMS
Directus — Free Headless CMS for Any Database
REST + GraphQL API from any SQL database. Admin UI, file storage, auth, flows. Connect to existing PostgreSQL/MySQL instantly.
Backend-as-a-Service
Appwrite — Free BaaS With Auth, DB, Storage, Functions
Auth (30+ providers), document DB, file storage, serverless functions, messaging, realtime. Self-host or 75K requests/month free cloud.
In-Memory Data
Valkey — Free Redis Alternative (BSD Licensed)
100% Redis compatible, BSD-3 licensed. Linux Foundation backed. Sub-ms reads, clustering, pub/sub, streams. Drop-in Redis replacement.
GraphQL
Grafbase — Free Edge-Deployed GraphQL Backend
1M requests/month, edge caching, auth, connectors to PostgreSQL/MongoDB. Define schema, get API.
Search
Meilisearch — Free Typo-Tolerant Search Engine
Sub-50ms search, typo tolerance, faceted search, geo search. MIT licensed. The Algolia alternative you self-host.
Git & DevOps
Gitea — Free Self-Hosted GitHub Alternative
Repos, PRs, CI/CD (GitHub Actions compatible!), package registry. MIT licensed, 512MB RAM. The lightweight GitLab.
Portainer — Free Docker/K8s Management UI
Web UI for Docker containers, stacks, volumes. One-click app templates. 5 nodes free. Manage servers from your browser.
Traefik — Free Auto-Discovery Reverse Proxy
Auto-discovers Docker services, provisions Let's Encrypt SSL. Load balancing, rate limiting, middleware. MIT licensed.
Identity & Auth
Authentik — Free Self-Hosted SSO
SSO, OAuth2, SAML2, LDAP. One login for all self-hosted apps. MFA, custom flows, audit logs. The Keycloak alternative.
Woodpecker CI — Free Self-Hosted CI/CD
Docker-native pipelines, YAML config, 100MB RAM. Perfect Gitea companion. Apache 2.0 licensed.
Monitoring
Uptime Kuma — Free Self-Hosted Monitoring
HTTP/TCP/DNS monitoring, status pages, 90+ notification services. Beautiful UI. MIT licensed. The UptimeRobot you self-host.
Listmonk — Free Self-Hosted Newsletter
Unlimited subscribers, campaigns, templates. Connect any SMTP. 10K subs for $1/month vs Mailchimp $100/month.
Design Tools
Excalidraw — Free Collaborative Whiteboard
Hand-drawn style diagrams, real-time collaboration, E2E encrypted. No login needed. MIT licensed.
AI / LLM
Ollama — Free Local LLM Runtime
Run Llama 3, Mistral, Gemma locally. OpenAI-compatible API. GPU accelerated. Zero API costs, complete privacy.
Supabase — Free Postgres + Auth + Storage + Functions
500MB Postgres (with pgvector!), 50K MAU auth, 1GB storage, 500K function invocations. The open-source Firebase on PostgreSQL.
Self-Hosted Apps
Immich — Free Self-Hosted Google Photos
AI search, face recognition, mobile auto-backup, RAW support. The Google Photos alternative you own.
Vaultwarden — Free Self-Hosted Password Manager
All Bitwarden premium features, 10MB RAM. Works with all Bitwarden clients. GPL licensed.
Paperless-ngx — Free Document Management
OCR, full-text search, auto-tagging, email consumption. Make every document searchable forever.
Networking & Privacy
WireGuard — Free Modern VPN
4,000 lines of code, kernel-level speed, 15-line config. 3-4x faster than OpenVPN. Built into Linux kernel.
Pi-hole — Free Network-Wide Ad Blocker
DNS-level ad blocking for every device. Dashboard, query logging, custom lists. Runs on Raspberry Pi.
Nextcloud — Free Self-Hosted Cloud Suite
Files, calendar, contacts, office suite, video calls, 400+ apps. The Google Workspace you self-host.
Jellyfin — Free Media Server
Movies, TV, music, books. Auto-metadata, transcoding, multi-user. 100% free, no premium tier. The Plex alternative.
Prometheus — Free Monitoring Stack
Time-series metrics, PromQL, Alertmanager, 100+ exporters. The industry standard for infrastructure monitoring.
Infrastructure-as-Code
Terraform — Free IaC for Any Cloud
3,000+ providers (AWS, GCP, Azure, Hetzner). Declarative config, plan before apply, state management. The IaC standard.
k3s — Free Lightweight Kubernetes
Single binary, 512MB RAM, 30-second install. Certified Kubernetes. Runs on Raspberry Pi.
Ansible — Free Agentless Automation
YAML playbooks, 2,000+ modules, agentless (SSH). Configure 100 servers with one command.
IoT & Smart Home
Home Assistant — Free Smart Home Platform
2,500+ integrations, local control, no cloud required. The universal smart home hub.
Data & Analytics
DuckDB — Free Embedded Analytical Database
SQL on CSV/Parquet/JSON directly. No server, no import. Vectorized columnar engine. MIT licensed.
The Pattern
Every one of these APIs follows the same pattern:
- Generous free tier — enough for MVPs and side projects
- No credit card — sign up and start building immediately
- Great docs — you can ship something in under 30 minutes
- Scales when ready — upgrade only when your app makes money
Stop paying for infrastructure before you have users. Build with free tiers, validate your idea, then upgrade.
Need to extract data from any website? Check out my web scraping tools on Apify — no coding required, extract data in minutes.
Custom scraping solution? Email me at spinov001@gmail.com
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