# Public APIs Directory Scraper - 1400+ Free APIs (`ninhothedev/public-apis-scraper`) Actor

$0.5/1K 🔥 Public APIs directory scraper! 1600+ free APIs with category, auth type, HTTPS & CORS. No key. JSON, CSV, Excel or API in seconds. Discover APIs for your next build ⚡

- **URL**: https://apify.com/ninhothedev/public-apis-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ninhothedev](https://apify.com/ninhothedev) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.50 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Public APIs Directory Scraper — 1400+ Free APIs, No Key Required

Scrape the entire **public-apis** directory — the largest community-maintained list of free and public APIs on the internet — into a clean, structured dataset. One row per API with its **name, description, category, auth type, HTTPS support, CORS policy and documentation link**.

No API key, no login, no proxy. Just run it and get ~1,600 machine-readable API records in under a minute.

***

### What you get

| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| `name` | API name, e.g. `Open-Meteo` |
| `description` | Short description of what the API does (capped at 1000 chars) |
| `category` | Directory category, e.g. `Weather`, `Cryptocurrency`, `Machine Learning` |
| `auth` | Auth type — normalized: `None`, `apiKey`, `OAuth`, `X-Mashape-Key`, `User-Agent` |
| `requires_auth` | Boolean shortcut — `false` means you can call it with zero credentials |
| `https` | Boolean — whether the API is served over HTTPS |
| `cors` | CORS policy — `Yes`, `No` or `Unknown` |
| `link` | Documentation / homepage URL |
| `source` | Which upstream source the record came from (`github-markdown` or `publicapis.org`) |
| `scraped_at` | ISO-8601 UTC timestamp of the run |

Every field is nullable, so downstream schemas never break when the community changes a column.

#### Sample output

```json
{
  "name": "Open-Meteo",
  "description": "Global weather forecast API for non-commercial use",
  "category": "Weather",
  "auth": "None",
  "requires_auth": false,
  "https": true,
  "cors": "Yes",
  "link": "https://open-meteo.com/",
  "source": "github-markdown",
  "scraped_at": "2026-07-28T14:13:31.442471+00:00"
}
```

***

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| `mode` | select | `apis` | What to scrape. `apis` returns all directory entries. |
| `category` | string | — | Exact category filter (case-insensitive), e.g. `Weather`. |
| `authFilter` | string | — | Exact auth filter (case-insensitive). Use `None` for zero-auth APIs. |
| `httpsOnly` | boolean | `false` | Only return APIs served over HTTPS. |
| `searchTerm` | string | — | Case-insensitive substring match on name + description. |
| `maxItems` | integer | `1000` | Max records to push (hard cap 5000). |

#### Example: every free, no-auth, HTTPS weather API

```json
{
  "mode": "apis",
  "category": "Weather",
  "authFilter": "None",
  "httpsOnly": true,
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

#### Example: everything

```json
{ "mode": "apis", "maxItems": 5000 }
```

***

### Data source

The actor tries two upstream sources, in order:

1. **`https://api.publicapis.org/entries`** — the classic JSON endpoint. This host has been **unreliable for a long time** (DNS resolution frequently fails entirely), so it is only *attempted* first and silently skipped when unavailable.
2. **`https://raw.githubusercontent.com/public-apis/public-apis/master/README.md`** — the canonical markdown README of the [`public-apis/public-apis`](https://github.com/public-apis/public-apis) repository. This is the actual source of truth that the JSON API was built from, and it is what the actor uses in practice today.

At the time of the last verification run, source 2 was used and returned **1,613 APIs across 51 categories**, all with a name, category, auth type and link. The `source` field on every record tells you exactly where the data came from, so you always know what you are looking at.

Markdown tables are parsed by tracking the current `### Category` heading and reading each `| [Name](link) | Description | Auth | HTTPS | CORS |` row. Promotional/sponsor tables at the top of the README are filtered out, backticks and inline HTML are stripped, and `No`/empty auth values are normalized to `None`.

***

### Use cases

- **API discovery** — find a free API for weather, sports, crypto, government data or anything else, filtered by whether it actually needs a key.
- **Developer tooling** — power an internal API catalog, a VS Code extension, a Slack bot or an LLM tool registry with fresh directory data.
- **Integration research** — audit which categories have HTTPS + CORS coverage before committing to a vendor, or shortlist candidates for a client integration.
- **Hackathons** — pull the whole no-auth, CORS-enabled subset in one run and hand your team a ready-made list of APIs they can call straight from the browser.

***

### Pricing

Roughly **$0.50 per 1,000 results**. A full directory pull (~1,600 APIs) costs well under a dollar and finishes in seconds — the actor makes a single HTTP request and does all the work locally.

***

### Related actors

- [GitHub Trending Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/github-trending-scraper)
- [npms Search Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/npms-search-scraper)
- [OpenRouter Models Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/openrouter-models-scraper)
- [pkg.go.dev Scraper](https://apify.com/ninhothedev/pkg-go-dev-scraper)

***

### Notes

- The actor fails loudly with a `RuntimeError` if zero results are produced — either because both upstream sources are down, or because your filters matched nothing. Loosen the filters and re-run.
- Data is community-maintained. Some entries link to APIs that have since gone offline or changed their auth model; always verify before shipping to production.
- Output ordering follows the directory: alphabetical by category, then alphabetical by API name.

# Actor input Schema

## `mode` (type: `string`):

What to scrape. Currently one mode is supported: 'apis' returns every entry of the public-apis directory (optionally narrowed down by the filters below).

## `category` (type: `string`):

Only return APIs from this exact directory category, case-insensitive. Examples: 'Weather', 'Animals', 'Cryptocurrency', 'Games & Comics', 'Machine Learning'. Leave empty to get all categories.

## `authFilter` (type: `string`):

Only return APIs whose auth type matches exactly, case-insensitive. Use 'None' for APIs that need no authentication at all. Other common values: 'apiKey', 'OAuth', 'X-Mashape-Key'. Leave empty for any auth type.

## `httpsOnly` (type: `boolean`):

If enabled, only APIs that are served over HTTPS are returned. Entries with an unknown HTTPS column are dropped as well.

## `searchTerm` (type: `string`):

Free-text filter, case-insensitive substring match against the API name and its description. Example: 'currency' or 'football'. Leave empty to skip text filtering.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of API records to push to the dataset. Defaults to 1000, hard capped at 5000 (the directory currently holds roughly 1400 entries).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "apis",
  "category": "Weather",
  "authFilter": "None",
  "httpsOnly": false,
  "searchTerm": "weather",
  "maxItems": 1000
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `apis` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("ninhothedev/public-apis-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("ninhothedev/public-apis-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call ninhothedev/public-apis-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,ninhothedev/public-apis-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/pFS7BAzUeQBktUFAx/builds/dGJ1RS5xEGNMRZmxc/openapi.json