/free-apis-catalog

name: free-apis-catalog
description: Use when suggesting APIs for a project, looking for free data sources, building weekend projects that need external data, or when the user needs weather, news, finance, sports, ML, or entertainment data without paid subscriptions

Free APIs catalog (journalism-curated)

A short list of free APIs that work for journalism, research, and weekend projects under current free-tier conditions. The value here is curation under verified 2026 free-tier limits — not coverage. For breadth, defer to the canonical aggregator below.

Canonical breadth reference

For a near-complete inventory of free public APIs across every category (1000+ entries, actively maintained), use:

• **public-apis/public-apis on GitHub** — https://github.com/public-apis/public-apis

Not archived, last commit verified 2026-05-09, 4,600+ commits, 6,000+ merged PRs. When you need an API outside the categories below, search there first.

This skill curates the journalism-relevant subset.

Recently sunset / changed (don't use)

| API | Status | What to use instead | |---|---|---| | **IEX Cloud** | Fully retired 2024-08-31. https://iexcloud.org/ | Alpha Vantage, Tiingo IEX, Financial Modeling Prep, Polygon | | **CrowdTangle** | Sunset 2024-08-14 | Meta Content Library (academic/non-profit-research only — most journalists ineligible). https://transparency.meta.com/researchtools/meta-content-library/ | | **ProPublica Congress API** | Retired 2024-07-10, repo archived. https://www.propublica.org/nerds/congress-api-update | api.congress.gov (Library of Congress, free with api.data.gov key) | | **X / Twitter API free tier** | Effectively eliminated for new developers as of Feb 2026; pay-per-use only. Uncertain on exact figures (provider pricing page returned 402). Treat as paid. | No free replacement; closest free alternatives are Bluesky Jetstream + Mastodon | | **Reddit API** | Free for research/non-commercial only since June 2023; paid for commercial use. https://www.reddit.com/wiki/api/ | (Same — usable for journalism research, prohibited for monetized products) | | **Hugging Face Inference API** | Rebranded to Inference Providers (router across 20+ providers). Free users now get $0.10/month in credits, down from previous unmetered free tier for many models. https://huggingface.co/docs/inference-providers/pricing | Free tier still works for low-volume / embeddings; paid for production |

Journalism-curated short list

All entries below verified against provider pages on 2026-05-09 unless marked **uncertain**. Always confirm rate limits against the provider's live developer docs before depending on them in production.

News monitoring

| API | Free tier | Notes | |---|---|---| | [GDELT 2.0](https://gdeltproject.org/data.html) | Fully free, no auth | Global news + knowledge graph, updates every 15 min, BigQuery-mirrored. Strong for cross-border / longitudinal monitoring. | | [NewsAPI](https://newsapi.org/pricing) | 100 req/day, 24h delay, 1mo window, dev-only | Commercial use prohibited on free tier. Not usable in shipped products. | | [GNews](https://gnews.io/#pricing) | 100 req/day, 30d window, 12h delay, non-commercial | 10 articles/request cap. | | [Mediastack](https://mediastack.com/pricing) | 100 req/month, 30-min delay | Functionally a demo. | | [NYT Article Search / Top Stories](https://developer.nytimes.com/) | Free with key, daily cap (uncertain — verify) | Solid for archival queries. |

Social platforms (post-API-monetization landscape)

| API | Free tier | Notes | |---|---|---| | [Bluesky Jetstream](https://docs.bsky.app/blog/jetstream) | Public WebSocket firehose, no auth | Real-time public-post stream. 4 official instances. Caveat: not formally part of AT Protocol — no long-term stability commitment. | | [Bluesky AppView](https://docs.bsky.app/docs/advanced-guides/rate-limits) | Public read endpoints, 3000 req / 5min IP-based | Auth needed for write ops. Profiles, posts, search. | | [Mastodon](https://docs.joinmastodon.org/api/) | Per-instance, OAuth, public endpoints often unauth-readable | Federated — coverage is server-by-server. | | [Threads (Meta)](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/threads) | Free pricing not surfaced on docs page (uncertain — verify) | Read/post/reply/search/insights/webhooks. | | [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/api/) | 100 QPM authenticated, 10 QPM unauthenticated, non-commercial only | Adequate for OSINT/research, prohibited for monetized products. | | [Meta Content Library](https://transparency.meta.com/researchtools/meta-content-library/) | Academic / non-profit researchers only | Most journalists need a university partner to qualify. | | [TikTok Research API](https://developers.tiktok.com/products/research-api/) | Academic-affiliated researchers only | Same eligibility gate as MCL. |

Government / public records (US)

| API | Free tier | Notes | |---|---|---| | [api.data.gov umbrella key](https://api.data.gov/) | One key for 25+ federal agencies, 450+ APIs | Gateway for NASA, NPS, NIH, USGS, FDA, EPA, LoC, etc. Use this first. | | [api.congress.gov](https://api.congress.gov/) | Free with api.data.gov key | Official Library of Congress legislative data. Replaces ProPublica Congress API. | | [GovInfo (GPO)](https://www.govinfo.gov/developers) | Uses api.data.gov key | Federal-publication search and full-text. New MCP server in public preview for LLM workflows. | | [OpenFEC](https://api.open.fec.gov/developers/) | Free, api.data.gov key | Campaign finance. (Page ECONNREFUSED on verification day — confirm rate limits live.) | | [Census API](https://api.census.gov/data.html) | Free, no documented rate limits | Demographic / economic data. | | [BLS](https://www.bls.gov/developers/) | 500 queries/day, 25 series/query with key (**uncertain** — page 403'd; verify) | Labor statistics. | | [BEA](https://apps.bea.gov/api/signup/) | Free with key | National income & product accounts. | | [EPA Envirofacts](https://www.epa.gov/envir