Public APIs

What it is

Public APIs is a list of free APIs that developers can use in their own projects. The public-apis community keeps it, along with people at APILayer. It is a README, not a program: you read it, search it and pick an API from it. Each category has a table with the API’s name and link, a short description, and whether it needs authentication, supports HTTPS and supports CORS. CONTRIBUTING.md asks only for full, free access or at least a free tier, so some APIs are free only up to a limit. The README also holds a table of APILayer’s own APIs and a section of MCP servers that let AI agents call APIs as tools.

1. You need an API for a project
2. Open the category table in the README
3. Read the Auth, HTTPS and CORS columns
4. Follow the row’s link to the API’s docs
5. Call it, with a key if Auth says so

Who it suits

Developers who need data or a service for a side project, a prototype or a practice app, and want many options on one page. Front-end developers can use the CORS column, since the contributing page says an API without proper CORS is usable only server side. Anyone who wants an agent to pick an API for a task can hand it the list and name the columns that matter.

Skip it if you want an API with a support promise. The list links to other people’s APIs, and its MIT license provides the software “AS IS”, without warranty of any kind.

Where to use it

The list works anywhere you can open a web page or a Markdown file.

• GitHub: the README, with an Index of categories above the tables
• The publicapis.lol website: the README calls it the same list rebuilt as a searchable site, with filters for auth, HTTPS and CORS
• A local copy: clone the repository, then read or search README.md by hand or with your coding agent
• Python: the maker’s format and link checks run on README.md
• MCP clients: the README’s MCP Servers section lists servers for clients such as Claude, Cursor and VS Code

The README gives no steps for any coding agent. Mindket’s notes for Claude Code, Codex and Cursor are ordinary steps for giving an agent a file to read, and they say so.

How to set it up

Get it saves a zip of Mindket’s setup notes in your downloads folder. The list itself needs no install. The README gives no install line either.

1. Read the README on GitHub, or open the website.
2. To keep a copy, clone the repository with the line below. Then open the folder in your editor or coding agent.
3. To search by hand, use your editor’s search. A heading such as ### Weather finds a category, and | No | Yes | Yes | finds rows with no key, HTTPS and CORS.
4. For the maker’s checks, install Python, then the packages from scripts/requirements.txt.

git clone https://github.com/public-apis/public-apis.git

The clone line is ordinary Git on the address GitHub reports for the repository. The Python lines below are copied from the maker’s scripts README and run from the repository’s root. The first installs the packages the checks use. The second runs the format check.

python -m pip install -r scripts/requirements.txt
python scripts/validate/format.py README.md

How to use it

Open a category table and read each row from left to right. Auth says what the API asks of you: No, or one of apiKey, OAuth, X-Mashape-Key and User-Agent. HTTPS says Yes or No. CORS says Yes, No or Unknown. Then follow the name’s link to the API’s own documentation, since the row holds only a short description.

With an agent, name the file, the category and the columns you need.

Open README.md in this folder. List the APIs in the Weather category that need no key and support CORS, with their links.

On the website, the README lists a search page with filters, a page of APIs that need no key, a live status page and a random API page.

Example

You are building a small browser page about animals. It must call an API directly, so you want rows with Auth No and CORS Yes, and you open the Animals table or ask your agent:

Read the Animals table in README.md. I need Auth No and CORS Yes. Suggest three, and say what each one returns, going by its description.

In the README read on 3 November 2026, these rows qualify, among others:

Cat Facts (https://catfact.ninja/): Random cat facts
Dogs (https://dog.ceo/dog-api/): Based on the Stanford Dogs Dataset
HTTP Cat (https://http.cat/): Cat for every HTTP Status

You pick one and open its link. The row gave you the three flags. The row links to the API’s own page, which is where to look for its limits and what a request looks like. Test one request before you build the page around it.

For newcomers and experts

If you are new. An API is an address a program can ask for data, such as a cat fact or an exchange rate. This list does not hold the data. It points to many APIs and tells you what each one asks of you. Auth tells you whether you need a key or a login. HTTPS tells you whether the API supports a secure connection. CORS tells you whether a web page in a browser may call it directly. Without CORS, only your own server can. Start with a category you like, pick a row with No under Auth, and open its link.

For experts. The tables are plain Markdown with one row per line. A line reader can parse them. The maker’s format check splits each row at the pipe and sorts the titles in upper case to test the order.

APILayer’s APIs sit in a table of three columns, and the MCP Servers table has five: Name, Description, Auth, Transport and Install. Transport is stdio, HTTP or SSE. Install links the marketplaces that list the server. CONTRIBUTING.md says it tracks Cursor, Anthropic and Glama, and some rows also link npm, the MCP Registry or Smithery.

The maker’s link check requests every link after the README’s Index heading, one at a time, with a 25 second timeout. A daily workflow runs it on README.md, and the pull request check runs it only on the lines a pull request adds, so a new row has its links tested. The -odlc flag runs only the duplicate check, with no requests.

The README links an “API for this project”, and that repository’s README lists endpoints for entries, a random entry, categories and health. Its host did not resolve from our PC on 3 November 2026.

Good to know

The list is only text, so nothing here runs on your machine unless you run the maker’s checks. The questions are about what it links to.

• License: MIT, “Copyright (c) 2022 public-apis”. It covers the repository’s files. Each linked API has its own owner and terms
• Promotion: the README opens with APILayer’s suite and a table of its APIs. Some category tables, such as Currency Exchange and Weather, also start with APILayer rows. Those links carry tracking parameters. CONTRIBUTING.md says pull requests that market company APIs are not accepted
• What is checked: the format of rows, duplicate links and whether a link answers. The checks do not test what an API does with a request
• Change: the tables change as people add and remove rows, so a row quoted here may have moved
• MCP servers: a server in that table is someone else’s program or service. Read its own page before you add it to an agent
• Outbound: reading on GitHub or the website loads those sites, and the link check sends a web request to each link after the README’s Index heading
• Removal: delete the local copy’s folder. If you installed the checks’ packages from scripts/requirements.txt, remove them with pip