
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- 01
Install
Run the command in your project. The CLI asks which agents to install for.
- 02
Describe the task
Ask your agent for something this skill covers. It loads free-apis-catalog automatically when relevant.
- 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:
- public-apis/public-apis on GitHub, https://github.com/public-apis/public-apis
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. |
| 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.
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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