With so many free APIs continually coming on to the market, it can be challenging to find the ones you need. Indeed, there are probably plenty of APIs that you won’t even know you need or want before you hear about them. To make things easier for you, here are the very best no-cost APIs for 2020.
API Meme
To generate memes with a simple link, try API Meme. Choose from a long list of available pictures, type in the top and bottom text that you want to appear on your chosen image, and click the button. Voila! You have created a fabulous and unique meme to use for whatever purposes you wish.
NewsAPI
You can find lists of excellent APIs for most purposes on RapidAPI, including APIs for obtaining news data. One of the best is NewsAPI. The simple and easy-to-use REST API enables you to receive JSON metadata for headlines that appear on more than 30,000 news sources and blogs from around the world, such as CNN, BBC News, Fox, Buzzfeed, ESPN, and Al Jazeera. There are three price tiers for NewsAPI. The free version enables you to make 500 requests per day for non-commercial projects.
Movie Database API
If you’re looking for data for movies and TV shows, check out the Movie Database API. Data is obtained from reliable sources like IMDB, and results are returned in either JSON or XML formats. You can access information like a TV show or film’s title, year of release, IMDB rating, Metascore rating, genre, runtime, awards, cast, production crew, and much more. For data about television shows and movies, the Movie Database API has everything you need. The basic version is free to use for making up to 1,000 requests per day. If you need more, you can upgrade to other plans.
The Lord of the Rings API
In addition to APIs that generate data for all types of movies, there are specific APIs for some of the most popular films out there. One of the best is this Lord of the Rings API. It not only retrieves data about the movie series. It also generates data about the original Tolkien books. With this API, you can find characters, quotes, and much more.
The Star Wars API
Another fabulous free movie API is this Star Wars one. You can find Star Wars data concerning pretty much anything from the hugely popular sci-fi movie series. Get information about characters, spaceships, planets, species, and much more. The response format is JSON. Use the Star Wars API, and the Force will surely be with you.
Star Wars Translations API
One more Star Wars API gets a mention because it is so cool! The Star Wars Translations API allows you to translate English words into one of the various languages from the sci-fi franchise. You can translate words into Sith, Gungan, Huttese, Cheunh, Mandalorian, and even Yoda-speech. Fantastic is Star Wars Translations!
TheCatAPI
There must be more pictures of cats on the internet than most anything else. With TheCatAPI, you can access thousands of images of cats from Tumblr. You can also get information about different breeds of cats, filter searches for specific breeds or categories like GIFs, and use custom values.
Bloomberg API
For financial data, check out the free unofficial Bloomberg API. You can access information about a wide variety of financial topics, such as currencies, commodities, futures, indices, rates, and bonds. For up-to-date financial data, this API is one of the best on the market.
Football-data.org API
For free, machine-readable football data and statistics, such as live scores, squads, lineups, fixtures, and tables, check out the Football-data.org API. Thousands use the RESTful API in JSON format to power websites and apps with up-to-date information about football data and the top competitions. There are also special paid-plans if you require more features.
ContextualWeb
This free search engine API enables you to access billions of web pages, images, and news items. Unlike other search engines, ContextualWeb mimics the human brain. So, there are no deep learning models or standard machine learning models. Give this ahead-of-its-time search engine a go to see just how powerful it is compared to others.
Internet Game Database
The Internet Game Database API, also known by its abbreviation IGDB, provides a free video game database for commercial and non-commercial use. You can find games, video game companies, and other gaming information. Basically, IGDB is a game community website that focuses on the needs of video game consumers and professionals. You can access video game modes, editions, and franchises. And you can obtain updates from news articles, social media, and feeds.
League of Legends
You can also find APIs for specific video games, such as League of Legends. The free online game enables players to assume the role of a summoner and fight other champions. The API for League of Legends includes information and statistics about the characters, and developers can call up information from the League of Legends database with REST calls.
Random Facts API
Get random facts on different topics with the free-to-use Random Facts API. It is one of the best random fact generators in the world. You can choose from a wide variety of categories and find hundreds of thousands of facts from the API’s database. You can also refine your results by using subcategory options.
JokeAPI
If you need to find jokes, try this free REST API. It serves uniformly and well-formatted jokes in JSON, YAML, XML, or plain text formats. And there is a fantastic variety of filtering methods to get the right types of jokes you need. Simply select a joke category, set any flags you want to blacklist, choose the response format, and begin searching. The JokeApI is no joke!
Traveltime API
It’s easy to find online resources to show distances as the crow flies. But with the Traveltime API, you can find out actual journey times for your chosen destinations. You can calculate times from an origin point to thousands of global destinations with a single API call, and create polygons to show how far you will travel within a certain time limit.
Spoonacular API
Spoonacular API is one of the best free food APIs on the market. You can access the details of over 2,600 ingredients, 360,000 recipes, 90,000 products, and 115,000 menu items. The engineers behind Spoonacular API spent years crafting complex food ontology to enable a thorough understanding of the relationship between things like ingredients, recipes, nutrition, and allergies. For special diets and intolerances, Spoonacular analyzes recipes to check for ingredients that contain common allergens, such as dairy, soy, and wheat. The API also determines whether a recipe is vegan, vegetarian, and more.
What are some of your go-to APIs? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, or Facebook. You can also comment on our MeWe page by joining the MeWe social network.
Last Updated on February 3, 2021.
