Public-apis: A Goldmine for Developers
Imagine: you need to add weather forecasting, cryptocurrency functionality, or social media integration to your project. Instead of writing everything from scratch, you can use a ready-made solution. But where do you find the right API? The answer is in the public-apis collection.
What is this project?
Public-apis is a hand-curated collection of over 14,000 free APIs, sorted by category. Over its 7 years of existence, the project has gathered 357 thousand stars on GitHub and has become the de facto standard for API discovery.
The project is community-driven and supported by APILayer, a company offering commercial API services. However, the collection itself remains completely open and free.
Why it's a goldmine for developers
Here's what makes public-apis indispensable:
- Massive selection — from weather to blockchain
- Human verification — all APIs are tested by the community
- Regular updates — new APIs are added weekly
- Parameter filtering — you can find APIs with the authentication type and CORS support you need
How the collection is organized
APIs are broken down into 60+ categories, including:
- Finance (exchange rates, stock market data)
- Artificial Intelligence
- Games and anime
- Government data
- Security
Each entry contains:
- API description
- Authentication type
- HTTPS support
- CORS information
- Link to documentation
Examples of interesting APIs
- Weather — Open-Meteo with forecasts based on NOAA models
- Photos — Pexels with millions of free stock photos
- AI — Infermedica for medical diagnostics
- Crypto — CoinGecko with data on 13,000+ coins
- Scraping — ScraperAPI for bypassing anti-bot protection
How to use it effectively
- Search by category in the README
- Check the parameters — especially CORS and HTTPS
- Mind the limits — even free APIs often have restrictions
- Watch for updates — the project is actively developing
Summary
Public-apis is a must-have in every developer's bookmarks. Instead of googling "which API to choose for..." just open this repository. Time savings guaranteed!
Who will find it especially useful:
- Full-stack developers
- Mobile app creators
- Hackathon participants
- Students working on learning projects
Give it a try — and maybe your next project will be ready 10 times faster!
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