Public APIs

What it is

public-apis is a long running list of free APIs, curated by community contributors and by people at APILayer, a company that sponsors the repository. As of September 2026 it has about 482,000 GitHub stars and 53,000 forks, and it is still actively updated. The list is MIT licensed.

For each API the table shows:

• a short description;
• Auth: whether you need no key, an API key or OAuth;
• HTTPS: whether it supports secure connections;
• CORS: whether you can call it directly from browser JavaScript.

The README now also lists APILayer's own paid APIs at the top and a small section of MCP servers for AI agents. The community list follows below.

Why it is useful

The hardest part of building portfolio projects is often choosing what to build. A list of real data sources turns that around: pick something interesting (cricket scores, currency rates, books, weather, recipes, open government data) and build something small with it. Working with a real API also teaches skills tutorials skip: reading documentation, handling rate limits, dealing with errors and missing fields, and storing keys safely.

How to pick a good API from the list

• Prefer No auth or apiKey for first projects; OAuth adds complexity.
• If you are building a frontend only app, choose APIs with CORS: Yes, or you will need a small backend proxy.
• Always choose HTTPS: Yes.
• Before investing time, open the API's own docs and make one test request with curl or Postman. Some listed APIs have changed terms or shut down.

Project ideas that work well

• A dashboard that combines two APIs, such as weather plus air quality for your city.
• A small search app with caching and pagination.
• A backend service that polls an API on a schedule and stores history, then shows trends.
• A command line tool that wraps an API you use often.

The value is in the engineering around the API: error handling, caching, tests and a clean interface.

Limitations

• Dead or changed APIs: with a list this large, some links are broken or APIs have moved to paid plans. Check before you build.
• Sponsor content: the top of the README promotes the sponsor's paid APIs. Scroll past to the categories for the community list.
• Variable quality: inclusion does not mean an API is reliable or well documented.
• Never commit API keys to a public repository, even for free APIs.

Pair it with

• Postman or a similar client for exploring APIs before coding.
• A backend tutorial in your stack (FastAPI, Express, Spring) to build a proxy with caching.

Best for: students and developers looking for real data to build portfolio projects, and anyone stuck on "what should I build?"