What Free API Surprised You the Most?
I've been building with free APIs for a few months now, and some of them genuinely shocked me with how much data they give away for free. My top 3 surprises: 1. ClinicalTrials.gov - 500,000+ clinical trials, completely free, no API key. You can search by condition, drug, sponsor, phase. The data qua
Alex Spinov
I've been building with free APIs for a few months now, and some of them genuinely shocked me with how much data they give away for free.
My top 3 surprises:
1. ClinicalTrials.gov - 500,000+ clinical trials, completely free, no API key. You can search by condition, drug, sponsor, phase. The data quality is insane because it's FDA-regulated.
2. USPTO PatentsView - 8 million+ US patents searchable via API. No key, no auth. You can search by inventor, company, technology class.
3. EPSS (Exploit Prediction) - FIRST.org gives you exploit probability scores for every CVE. Updated daily. Free. Most security teams don't even know this exists.
All three are government or nonprofit APIs, which is probably why they're free and unlimited.
I've been collecting these into open-source toolkits with ready-to-use Python code. Currently at 16 toolkits covering everything from weather to academic papers to vulnerability scanning.
What's an API that surprised you? Could be surprisingly good, surprisingly free, or surprisingly obscure.
Bonus points if most developers have never heard of it.
Found this useful? Share it!
Read the Full Story
Continue reading on Dev.to
Related Stories
I wanted shadcn/ui for Blazor. It didnโt exist. So I built it.
about 16 hours ago
Shipping Fast with AI? Youโre Probably Shipping Vulnerabilities Too.
about 16 hours ago

Oops, I Vibecoded Again. Please Help Me! โ A CSS Refiner
about 16 hours ago

๐ณ Dรฉtection de Fraude Bancaire & IA : Ma contribution au Notion MCP Challenge
about 16 hours ago