We Checked 1,600+ Free APIs. 254 Were Already Dead.
Every tutorial you have ever followed starts the same way: "just use this free API." Nobody tells you the second half of that sentence — that the API might have died two years ago. I run AKCLNT Free APIs, a directory of
Every tutorial you have ever followed starts the same way: "just use this free API." Nobody tells you the second half of that sentence — that the API might have died two years ago.
I run AKCLNT Free APIs, a directory of free APIs. Last month we did something the famous lists never do: we actually checked.
The method (steal it, it is simple)
- Curated core (111 APIs): a real GET request to a documented endpoint. One retry. Status, response time, and the response body itself are captured and published.
- Wider catalog (1,600+ APIs): a link check. The official site must answer like a living service — 2xx/3xx, or a login page that proves the service exists. Silence, 404s and 5xx after retries = dropped, not listed.
- Weekly re-checks. A list is a snapshot; APIs are living things. So the checks run every week, and the results are public per API — status history, uptime, health score.
What we found
- 254 dead links refused entry since tracking began. Not "deprecated." Dead. Sites that no longer answer at all.
- 82 APIs verified live with real endpoint requests at the latest check, and 4 down right now — shown, not hidden.
- The most common way a free API dies is not dramatic: the startup folds, the side project loses its hosting, the free tier gets acquired into oblivion. The tutorial that recommended it lives on forever.
The APIs that survive
The pattern is almost boring: the survivors are boringly well-run. Open-Meteo (weather, no key at all), REST Countries, PokeAPI, JSONPlaceholder, Frankfurter (ECB currency data, no key) — the ones run by institutions or by maintainers who treat uptime as the product.
If you are picking an API for a project, here is the checklist I now use:
- Does it answer right now? (Not "did a blog post say it works in 2021.")
- Is there a status history? One green check means nothing. Twenty weekly checks mean something.
- What happens when it breaks? A public status page, or silence?
- Keyless or free-key? Keyless is zero friction for prototypes. A free key is usually more reliable for production, because rate limits are per-user.
Take the data
The whole catalog is open:
- Browse it: freeapis.akclnt.com
- Raw JSON: freeapis.akclnt.com/data.json
- Dataset (CSV + JSON with check history): on Kaggle and HuggingFace — search "Free APIs Directory"
- Every API has a watch feed — subscribe and get an item the week its status changes.
And if you maintain a free API: your listing page has a live badge you can put on your README. It always shows the status from our latest check. No cost, no account.
The next census lands in November. If your favorite free API is missing — or dead — tell me in the comments and I will check it myself.
Originally published by Dev.to WebDev. Aggregated on AIWithGhost for educational purposes — full credit and traffic to the original publisher.