10 (More) Fun APIs for Developers - Project Ideas
It’s always fun to learn by building.
And even better when you don’t have to start from scratch!
Here’s a viral video I made a couple of years ago:
But in this article, I want to list ten more APIs you might find fun to play with.
The List ⚡️
The Cat API: “Cats as a Service”. A collection of random pictures, images, and facts about cats. It has a generous free tier, which should get your project started! Bonus: More of a dog person? They have a dog API too.
JokeAPI: Programming jokes, general jokes, and more. It is completely free. Pro tip: You might want to turn on the NSFW flag; some jokes can be dark. 👀
REST Countries: A fun one for the geography fans. Get information about countries via a RESTful API. It is completely free.
NASA API: Who doesn’t like space? Access various NASA data, including images, Mars Rover photos, and more. It is completely free.
Open Trivia DB: Quiz apps are becoming a staple of portfolios. Make yours even more interesting with this API! Free to use, user-contributed trivia question database. It is completely free.
News API: A news site could be a fun portfolio project! This is a JSON-based API for searching and retrieving live articles from all over the web. It has a free tier, which allows 100 requests a day. The limit is a bit low for my liking, but the content is rich.
CurrencyLayer API: Real-time and historical foreign exchange rates published by the European Central Bank. It has a great free tier and a paid tier with additional features. It's fun to learn how to deal with live data.
RandomUser.me: Why mock data when you can get an API to do it for you? Generates random user data like name, address, email, and more. It is entirely free.
Google APIs: This is a lot more than one… A collection of APIs provided by Google that you can start using for FREE, including Google Maps, Google Translate, and more. The free tier has limitations, but it shouldn't stop you unless you’re building something commercial!
GitHub API: Since it’s where most of us live, it’s a great API to become familiar with. It allows you to interact with almost all aspects of GitHub, including repositories, user profiles, and organizations. It has a free tier with limited features and a paid tier with additional features.
Happy coding! 🦄
And if you built something with one of the APIs, share it in the comments. 👇
