20 Free Public API’s For Developers

Free public APIs, like special tools for computer programs, are very important for lots of developers. They give a lot of information and features that can be used to make many different apps, like weather apps, news apps, and even tools for other developers.

API or Application Programming Interface is the connecting and communicating bridge between the frontend technology present on the client side and the database working at the backend. It is a messenger that helps us to deliver our request to the resource provider and then delivers the response to the user seamlessly.

What are Public API’s?

Public API is one of the types of API that is publicly available to everyone without any pre-requisite access. It is freely available to third-party developers in building software applications.

Public APIs are free and open source and can be implemented in a project using registered API keys unique to every public API. A third-party application like POSTMAN uses an API key to load a response from the server and request it to the front-end user. Public APIs are the best type of API for learning enthusiasts and developers to learn and integrate different tech stacks together.

Types of Public API

The Public API’s are classified into 4 types:

1. REST API
2. SOAP API
3. GraphQL
4. Webhooks

20 Free Public APIs For Developers

We’re going to check out some free public APIs that developers can use. These APIs cover a wide range of topics and services. Whether you want data about the weather, news stories, facts about countries, or just something funny to laugh at, we’ve got you covered. Here is the list of 20 Public and Powerful APIs that every developer can work through:

1. Spoonacular API

The Spoonacular API is an established and documented API containing thousands of recipe data that can be filtered or ranked according to the mold of information required by the front-end user. This API searches via query to the recipe, ingredient, food item, or whole menu necessarily required.

Alternative APIs

Developers can also build a food app or recipe application using different APIs like:

• The MealDB
• Recipe Generator API
• Random Recipes API

2. Deck of Cards API

Deck of Cards is a playing card API that allows users to interact with the operations of drawing the card, shuffling back the card, and discarding the deck into the piles. Players can also create a deck of varying sizes according to the rules of the game.

Alternative APIs

Developers can also build card game applications using different APIs like

• Chuck Norris Database API
• Clash Royale API
• Fortnite API

3. Twilio API

Twilio API is an SMS API that provides developers a way to send messages to multiple recipients. It is a communication API that can be embedded in software applications to send, and receive phone calls or text messages improving customer experience and satisfaction.

There are no alternative APIs for Twilio API.

4. Open Weather API

OpenWeather API is a simple and responsive weather information API containing an elegant dataset recognised by machine learning methods capable of giving responsive and correct weather information across any location on the globe that the user searches for.

Alternative APIs

Developers can also build the same weather application using different APIs like :

• WeatherStack API
• MetaWeather API
• Windy API

5. GitHub API

Github API is a REST API that allows us to retrieve all sorts of data regarding Github accounts registered on the Github Application. The Github API specifically retrieves all the public Github information about a Github profile like the people following you or the people you follow, the number of public repositories or the number of private repositories as well.

There are no alternative APIs for GitHub API.

6. Fake JSON API

Fake JSON API or Dummy JSON is a fake dummy data API that allows developers to create their own fake data. For example, using Fake JSON API developers can request a list of random users for the initial start. This API works as a data placeholder for clone applications like e-commerce, video libraries or social media platforms.

Alternative APIs

Developers can also request dummy data using different APIs like

• JSON Placeholder API
• Mocky API
• Mock Server API

7. Google Search API

Google Search API is a custom search API where developers issue requests against existing Programmable Search Engines while calling the API. It is a wonderful tool that allows us to create our custom search engine tool like Google.

Alternative APIs

Developers can also build custom search engines using different APIs like

• Bing Search API
• Serp API
• Duck Duck Go

8. Stripe API

Stripe API is a full stack payment API that serves third-party payment mediums and gateway . It allows the business model of software products to debit or credit automated transactions online and offline. The Stripe API is a public free API that handles all kinds of payments, refunds and credit-related operations.

Alternative APIs

Developers can use another alternative for payment gateway like

• Paytm API
• PayPal API
• Razorpay API

9. Giphy API

Giphy API is the Gifs Search Engine. GIFs are the animated texts used by developers to express their words. The Giphy API is a comprehensive dataset pool of Gifs.

Alternative APIs

Developers can use another alternative for animated text applications like

• MojiPop API
• Memeados API
• Mojitok Stickers API

10. Facebook Graph API

Facebook Graph API is an http-based API to extract and retrieve all metadata from the Facebook platform in JSON format. It is an extension of Graph API. This API fills the queries of users in managing the posts, and tasks related to the Facebook platform. It is an efficient way to get data from Facebook’s social graph.

There are no alternative APIs for Facebook Graph API.

11. Trivia API

The Trivia API is an elegant dataset of random trivia databases containing thousands of questions and answers based on specific categories like science, games, history or general topics. The whole Trivia API returns random trivia data.

Alternative APIs

‘Developers can use another alternative for trivia applications like

• Open Trivia DB
• Quiz API
• API Ninjas Trivia

12. Bytes View API

Bytes View API is a text analysis API that allows developers to analyze text for keyword recognition, Natural Language Processing and Sentimental Analysis tasks. It can be embedded in software applications to improve marketing, product quality, customer support and human resources. This API helps in knowing customer opinions about the application.

This API extends communication features to software applications in the mould of voice calls , phone texts and email. There are no alternative APIs for Bytes View API.

13. News API

News API is a REST API that returns datasets containing current and historic news articles. This API gives access to all old and new information from a variety of sources in different categories like entertainment, business, sports, health and technology.

Alternative APIs

‘Developers can use other alternative news clone applications like :

• Mediastack API
• Bing News API
• NewsData.io API

14. Google Maps API

Google Maps API is also called as GPS API. It is powered by Google and returns JSON format of geological data, places of interest and GPS. The Google Maps API includes mapping, street view, places, routing and directions. The geolocation functionality is an amazing feature of Google Maps API for developers to integrate into their software applications.

There are no alternative APIs for Google Maps API.

15. Books API

Books API provides comprehensive dataset information of genres of books, their authors, their volumes, publication dates or descriptions. This API returns a JSON search of full book information for the user.

Alternative APIs

‘Developers can use other alternative book search applications like

• Amazon Book API
• The ISBNdb API
• Bookshare API

16. Movie API

The Movie API provides comprehensive dataset information about all movie-related data, all information about the latest and old movies, actors, directors, release dates and ratings. This API will give you the definitive list of all old and current movies with their content and images.

Alternative APIs

Developers can use other alternative API to build movie-related applications like:

• MoviesDatabase API
• MobiesMiniDatabase API
• OTT Details API

17. Twitter API

Twitter API is a RESTFUL API that retrieves all metadata related to Twitter users, tweets, likes and comments. This API is an efficient tool for collecting Twitter data for further data analysis of trends in the market in different categories like Fashion, People, Technology etc.

There are no alternative APIs for Twitter API.

18. Spotify Web API

Spotify Web API is a music API that returns JSON format of music content metadata, recommendations, songs, albums, playlists generation, tracks and much more. This API retrieves data from your favourite singer, album or track that the user searches for.

Alternative APIs

Developers can use other alternative API to build music-related applications like:

• The AudioDB API
• Deezer API
• Sound Cloud API

19. Meme Generator API

Meme Generator API generates the JSON format of memes by choosing a preloaded image and short top and bottom text sentences as input. This API returns a JPEG image file format. The API returns a rich array of memes with captioned text moulded according to the user requirement in the software application.

Alternative APIs

Developers can use other alternative APIs to build meme-related applications like:

• Meme Generator API
• Jokes API
• Joke API

20. Bored API

Bored API is a free API that returns JSON data format by returning suggestions for doing random activities. It lets you find things when you are bored with random text data of day-to-day activities. It uses a database of everyday activities to fulfill API queries.

There are no alternative API’s for Bored API.

Benefits of Free Public APIs

There are a lot of benefits of working with public API for the developers:

• Public API minimizes the workload of developers in finding the extensive dataset for the software application by providing comprehensive data in the form of API to speed up the development process.
• Public API creates smooth integration and communication between front front-end applications and back-end services provided by the server.
• Developers can solely focus on the functionalities and features of software applications without worrying about the correctness, redundancy or completeness of data.

Must Read:

• What is API Integration?
• REST API Introduction
• How to fetch data from an API in ReactJS?

Conclusion

Public APIs are the access key to pre-built functionality and services of data retrieval in JSON format allowing applications to focus more on the functionality of the software application by delegating all data request and response operations to public API without thinking of building a core database server from scratch. The project requirements and developer learning graph decide which API to choose from in building a whole software application that could bring light to your coding practices and resume template.