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:
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 |
Fully free, no auth |
Global news + knowledge graph, updates every 15 min, BigQuery-mirrored. Strong for cross-border / longitudinal monitoring. |
| NewsAPI |
100 req/day, 24h delay, 1mo window, dev-only |
Commercial use prohibited on free tier. Not usable in shipped products. |
| GNews |
100 req/day, 30d window, 12h delay, non-commercial |
10 articles/request cap. |
| Mediastack |
100 req/month, 30-min delay |
Functionally a demo. |
| NYT Article Search / Top Stories |
Free with key, daily cap (uncertain, verify) |
Solid for archival queries. |
Social platforms (post-API-monetization landscape)
| API |
Free tier |
Notes |
| Bluesky 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 |
Public read endpoints, 3000 req / 5min IP-based |
Auth needed for write ops. Profiles, posts, search. |
| Mastodon |
Per-instance, OAuth, public endpoints often unauth-readable |
Federated, coverage is server-by-server. |
| Threads (Meta) |
Free pricing not surfaced on docs page (uncertain, verify) |
Read/post/reply/search/insights/webhooks. |
| Reddit |
100 QPM authenticated, 10 QPM unauthenticated, non-commercial only |
Adequate for OSINT/research, prohibited for monetized products. |
| Meta Content Library |
Academic / non-profit researchers only |
Most journalists need a university partner to qualify. |
| TikTok Research API |
Academic-affiliated researchers only |
Same eligibility gate as MCL. |
Government / public records (US)
| API |
Free tier |
Notes |
| api.data.gov umbrella key |
One key for 25+ federal agencies, 450+ APIs |
Gateway for NASA, NPS, NIH, USGS, FDA, EPA, LoC, etc. Use this first. |
| api.congress.gov |
Free with api.data.gov key |
Official Library of Congress legislative data. Replaces ProPublica Congress API. |
| GovInfo (GPO) |
Uses api.data.gov key |
Federal-publication search and full-text. New MCP server in public preview for LLM workflows. |
| OpenFEC |
Free, api.data.gov key |
Campaign finance. (Page ECONNREFUSED on verification day, confirm rate limits live.) |
| Census API |
Free, no documented rate limits |
Demographic / economic data. |
| BLS |
500 queries/day, 25 series/query with key (uncertain, page 403'd; verify) |
Labor statistics. |
| BEA |
Free with key |
National income & product accounts. |
| EPA Envirofacts |
Free, no auth |
TRI, Superfund, ECHO, RCRAInfo, SDWIS, GHG, RadNet, FRS, ~20 EPA programs. |
| USGS earthquakes |
Free, no auth |
Real-time + historical earthquake events. GeoJSON / QuakeML / CSV. |
Weather / climate
| API |
Free tier |
Notes |
| NWS api.weather.gov |
Fully free, no key, just User-Agent header |
"Generous" rate limit. Forecasts, alerts, observations, gridpoints. US only. |
| Open-Meteo |
Free non-commercial: 600/min, 10k/day, 300k/month, no key |
CC BY 4.0 attribution required. Global. Commercial use requires paid. |
| OpenWeather |
60 calls/min, 1M calls/mo on free tier |
Historical weather, 30-day forecasts, Bulk Download, Weather History API are paid. Students get historical via student program. |
Financial / economic
| API |
Free tier |
Notes |
| FRED (St. Louis Fed) |
Free with key (uncertain, page 403'd; verify limits) |
Primary reference for US macro data. |
| CoinGecko Demo |
10k calls/mo, 30/min, free with key |
Attribution required. |
| Alpha Vantage |
25 requests/day |
Free tier is now a demo, not a usable journalism data source. Migration target for IEX Cloud users, but expect to need a paid tier for any real workload. |
| Financial Modeling Prep |
Free tier exists, paid for production |
IEX Cloud successor. |
Archive / preservation
| API |
Free tier |
Notes |
| Wayback Machine |
Free |
Availability JSON, Memento, CDX server. Save Page Now exposes programmatic submit. |
| archive.today |
Programmatic submit available; no public API docs (uncertain, WebFetch blocked) |
Useful for redundancy alongside Wayback. Verify endpoint by direct curl. |
AI / ML
| API |
Free tier |
Notes |
| Hugging Face Inference Providers |
$0.10/month free credit, then pay-as-you-go |
2024 rebrand from "Inference API." Plain HF Inference now mostly CPU-only (embeddings, BERT-class). PRO users get $2/month. |
| Cohere |
Free trial key for development, rate-limited |
Paid for production. |
Sports
| API |
Free tier |
Notes |
| TheSportsDB |
Free at point of access |
$9/mo premium for production key. |
| football-data.org |
Free tier covers 12 major competitions |
UCL, Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, etc. |
Evaluating APIs from the catalog
When picking an API for a journalism project, check three things on the provider's developer docs:
| Field |
What to check |
| Auth |
"No auth" = no registration. "Key required" = sign up + manage the key. OAuth = per-user flow. |
| Free-tier limits |
Daily / monthly request caps, rate limits per minute, article delay (often 12–24h on free tiers), recency window. |
| Commercial restriction |
Many "free" APIs prohibit commercial use. Even an internal newsroom tool that supports paid coverage may count. Read the ToS. |
| CORS |
Matters for browser frontends, irrelevant for backend scripts and cron jobs. |
| Stability commitment |
Some "free firehose" APIs (e.g., Bluesky Jetstream) have no long-term stability commitment. Don't depend on them in production without a fallback. |
Weekend project ideas
- News alerts: GDELT or NewsAPI + keyword filter + Telegram bot (2–3 hours)
- Sentiment signal: News feed + Hugging Face sentiment model + score from −1 to +1 (note free-tier credit cap)
- Weather dashboard: Open-Meteo + historical data + forecast for target city
- Earthquake monitor: USGS FDSN feed + threshold filter + Slack notification
- Federal dataset explorer: api.data.gov key + cycle through agencies + index findings to a project digital archive
Usage tip
For any new project needing external data: check the journalism-curated list above first. If nothing fits, search public-apis/public-apis. Feed candidate API docs to an agent along with your specific use case, it'll spot rate-limit / commercial-use traps that a casual read would miss.
Last currency sweep
2026-05-09. Verified directly against provider pages where reachable; uncertain entries marked inline with the specific provider page that failed verification (403, ECONNREFUSED, login-walled). Re-verify rate-limit numbers before depending on them in production.
Curation under current free-tier conditions is what paid alternatives like RapidAPI's directory don't provide. Coverage is what public-apis/public-apis is for.
