Every Free Public API I Found That Actually Works (2026 Edition)

I Tested 50+ Free APIs. These 20 Actually Work.

No broken endpoints. No surprise paywalls. No deprecated docs. Every API on this list was tested in March 2026.

Data & Research

API	What It Does	Key Needed?	Rate Limit
OpenAlex	250M+ research papers	No	100K/day
Crossref	140M+ DOIs and metadata	No (polite pool)	50/sec
ORCID	18M researcher profiles	No	24/sec
Semantic Scholar	200M papers + AI recommendations	Yes (free)	100/5min
Internet Archive	800B archived web pages	No	Be polite
Wikipedia	60M+ articles, 300 languages	No	Be polite

Weather & Geo

API	What It Does	Key Needed?	Rate Limit
Open-Meteo	Weather forecast + historical	No	10K/day
OpenStreetMap/Nominatim	Geocoding, reverse geocoding	No	1/sec
OSRM	Driving/walking/cycling routes	No	Fair use
ip-api.com	IP geolocation	No	45/min

Security & Infrastructure

API	What It Does	Key Needed?	Rate Limit
Have I Been Pwned	Password breach check	No	Unlimited
crt.sh	SSL certificate transparency	No	Be polite
Shodan	Internet device search	Yes (free tier)	100/month
VirusTotal	File/URL malware scan	Yes (free)	4/min

Developer Tools

API	What It Does	Key Needed?	Rate Limit
GitHub	Repos, issues, users	Yes (free)	5000/hr
GitLab	Same as GitHub	Yes (free)	2000/hr
npm Registry	Package metadata	No	Fair use
PyPI	Python package info	No	Fair use

Fun & Content

API	What It Does	Key Needed?	Rate Limit
Open Library	20M+ book records	No	Fair use
NASA	Mars photos, asteroids, APOD	Yes (free)	1000/hr

The Dead List (Skip These)

• Twitter/X API — $100/month for basic. Not free anymore.
• NewsAPI — Free tier only returns yesterday. Useless.
• Google Maps — $200 credit burns in a week. "Free" is a lie.
• Alpha Vantage — 5 calls/minute. Can not build anything real.
• Abstract API — Email verification was wrong 40% of the time.

How I Tested

For each API:

1. Made 10 requests with different parameters
2. Checked response time (all under 2 seconds)
3. Verified data accuracy against known sources
4. Confirmed rate limits match documentation
5. Checked if the free tier is actually useful (not crippled)

Pattern

The most reliable free APIs come from:

• Non-profits (Wikipedia, Internet Archive, OpenStreetMap)
• Academic institutions (OpenAlex, Crossref, ORCID)
• Security community (Have I Been Pwned, crt.sh)

Companies always paywall eventually. Open-source lasts.

---

I maintain a curated list of working APIs. GitHub | More articles

---

More from me: 10 Dev Tools I Use Daily | 77 Scrapers on a Schedule | 150+ Free APIs