MCPInstall

free-apis-catalog

Curated free APIs with verified free-tier limits. Use when suggesting APIs or finding free weather, news, finance, or sports data.

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Install

Works with every agent the skills CLI supports.

npx skills add https://github.com/jamditis/claude-skills-journalism --skill free-apis-catalog
  1. 01

    Install

    Run the command in your project. The CLI asks which agents to install for.

  2. 02

    Describe the task

    Ask your agent for something this skill covers. It loads free-apis-catalog automatically when relevant.

  3. 03

    Review the result

    The agent follows the SKILL.md steps, scripts and references bundled with the skill.

SKILL.md

The instructions your agent reads when the skill is triggered.

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)

APIStatusWhat to use instead
IEX CloudFully retired 2024-08-31. https://iexcloud.org/Alpha Vantage, Tiingo IEX, Financial Modeling Prep, Polygon
CrowdTangleSunset 2024-08-14Meta Content Library (academic/non-profit-research only, most journalists ineligible). https://transparency.meta.com/researchtools/meta-content-library/
ProPublica Congress APIRetired 2024-07-10, repo archived. https://www.propublica.org/nerds/congress-api-updateapi.congress.gov (Library of Congress, free with api.data.gov key)
X / Twitter API free tierEffectively 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 APIFree 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 APIRebranded 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/pricingFree 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

APIFree tierNotes
GDELT 2.0Fully free, no authGlobal news + knowledge graph, updates every 15 min, BigQuery-mirrored. Strong for cross-border / longitudinal monitoring.
NewsAPI100 req/day, 24h delay, 1mo window, dev-onlyCommercial use prohibited on free tier. Not usable in shipped products.
GNews100 req/day, 30d window, 12h delay, non-commercial10 articles/request cap.
Mediastack100 req/month, 30-min delayFunctionally a demo.
NYT Article Search / Top StoriesFree with key, daily cap (uncertain, verify)Solid for archival queries.

Social platforms (post-API-monetization landscape)

APIFree tierNotes
Bluesky JetstreamPublic WebSocket firehose, no authReal-time public-post stream. 4 official instances. Caveat: not formally part of AT Protocol, no long-term stability commitment.
Bluesky AppViewPublic read endpoints, 3000 req / 5min IP-basedAuth needed for write ops. Profiles, posts, search.
MastodonPer-instance, OAuth, public endpoints often unauth-readableFederated, coverage is server-by-server.
Threads (Meta)Free pricing not surfaced on docs page (uncertain, verify)Read/post/reply/search/insights/webhooks.
Reddit100 QPM authenticated, 10 QPM unauthenticated, non-commercial onlyAdequate for OSINT/research, prohibited for monetized products.
Meta Content LibraryAcademic / non-profit researchers onlyMost journalists need a university partner to qualify.
TikTok Research APIAcademic-affiliated researchers onlySame eligibility gate as MCL.

Government / public records (US)

APIFree tierNotes
api.data.gov umbrella keyOne key for 25+ federal agencies, 450+ APIsGateway for NASA, NPS, NIH, USGS, FDA, EPA, LoC, etc. Use this first.
api.congress.govFree with api.data.gov keyOfficial Library of Congress legislative data. Replaces ProPublica Congress API.
GovInfo (GPO)Uses api.data.gov keyFederal-publication search and full-text. New MCP server in public preview for LLM workflows.
OpenFECFree, api.data.gov keyCampaign finance. (Page ECONNREFUSED on verification day, confirm rate limits live.)
Census APIFree, no documented rate limitsDemographic / economic data.
BLS500 queries/day, 25 series/query with key (uncertain, page 403'd; verify)Labor statistics.
BEAFree with keyNational income & product accounts.
EPA EnvirofactsFree, no authTRI, Superfund, ECHO, RCRAInfo, SDWIS, GHG, RadNet, FRS, ~20 EPA programs.
USGS earthquakesFree, no authReal-time + historical earthquake events. GeoJSON / QuakeML / CSV.

Weather / climate

APIFree tierNotes
NWS api.weather.govFully free, no key, just User-Agent header"Generous" rate limit. Forecasts, alerts, observations, gridpoints. US only.
Open-MeteoFree non-commercial: 600/min, 10k/day, 300k/month, no keyCC BY 4.0 attribution required. Global. Commercial use requires paid.
OpenWeather60 calls/min, 1M calls/mo on free tierHistorical weather, 30-day forecasts, Bulk Download, Weather History API are paid. Students get historical via student program.

Financial / economic

APIFree tierNotes
FRED (St. Louis Fed)Free with key (uncertain, page 403'd; verify limits)Primary reference for US macro data.
CoinGecko Demo10k calls/mo, 30/min, free with keyAttribution required.
Alpha Vantage25 requests/dayFree 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 PrepFree tier exists, paid for productionIEX Cloud successor.

Archive / preservation

APIFree tierNotes
Wayback MachineFreeAvailability JSON, Memento, CDX server. Save Page Now exposes programmatic submit.
archive.todayProgrammatic submit available; no public API docs (uncertain, WebFetch blocked)Useful for redundancy alongside Wayback. Verify endpoint by direct curl.

AI / ML

APIFree tierNotes
Hugging Face Inference Providers$0.10/month free credit, then pay-as-you-go2024 rebrand from "Inference API." Plain HF Inference now mostly CPU-only (embeddings, BERT-class). PRO users get $2/month.
CohereFree trial key for development, rate-limitedPaid for production.

Sports

APIFree tierNotes
TheSportsDBFree at point of access$9/mo premium for production key.
football-data.orgFree tier covers 12 major competitionsUCL, 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:

FieldWhat to check
Auth"No auth" = no registration. "Key required" = sign up + manage the key. OAuth = per-user flow.
Free-tier limitsDaily / monthly request caps, rate limits per minute, article delay (often 12–24h on free tiers), recency window.
Commercial restrictionMany "free" APIs prohibit commercial use. Even an internal newsroom tool that supports paid coverage may count. Read the ToS.
CORSMatters for browser frontends, irrelevant for backend scripts and cron jobs.
Stability commitmentSome "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.

FAQ

What does the free-apis-catalog skill do?

Curated free APIs with verified free-tier limits. Use when suggesting APIs or finding free weather, news, finance, or sports data.

How do I install free-apis-catalog?

Run npx skills add https://github.com/jamditis/claude-skills-journalism --skill free-apis-catalog in your project. The skills CLI detects the agents you use and copies the skill into the right folder. For Claude Code you can also place the skill folder at ~/.claude/skills/free-apis-catalog/ (personal) or .claude/skills/free-apis-catalog/ (project).

Which AI agents can use free-apis-catalog?

Any agent that supports the open Agent Skills format (a folder with a SKILL.md file), including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, Cline, OpenCode and more.

Is free-apis-catalog safe to install?

No partner security audit is available yet. Skills can run commands and scripts, so read the SKILL.md and any bundled files before installing.

Who maintains free-apis-catalog?

It is published by jamditis in jamditis/claude-skills-journalism. It has 178 recorded installs.

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