The short answer: the free-API world is bigger and healthier than the famous lists suggest — if someone actually checks. This directory now tracks 1,653 free APIs. Of those, 82 are verified live with real endpoint requests (responses published as proof), 4 are down right now and labeled as such, and 258 dead links have been refused entry since tracking began. This report is the first of a monthly series; the numbers regenerate from the same data the site runs on.
Auto-discovery switched on. The catalog now refreshes itself from the open public-apis dataset every weekly run: new APIs are found, deduplicated by name and domain (22 of the first 38 candidates were the same APIs wearing new URLs), link-checked, and only then admitted to the Listed tier. Sixteen genuinely new APIs joined in the first run alone — including CoinGecko, Cohere and JokeAPI listings that other directories still miss.
The newsletter went live. Free API Friday — five new free APIs, one email, every Friday — opened for subscriptions, powered by the same weekly verification data this report is built from.
Curated-core APIs get a real GET request to a documented endpoint, one retry, with status, timing and the response itself published. The wider catalog is link-checked: the official site must answer like a living service. Failures are printed, not buried — the full methodology lives at How we test. Next census: November 2026.
How many free APIs are there?
We currently track 1,653 — and the honest answer is that nobody knows the true total, because lists rot. What we can promise is narrower and stronger: every API here is re-checked weekly, and the dead ones (258 so far) are removed in public.
Which free APIs are down right now?
4 of the tracked APIs failed their latest check. The live list, with full histories, is on the <a href="/status/">status board</a> — it updates at every weekly verification run.
Browse the live-verified catalog, check the status board, or steal a starter bundle.