Nearly every panel on the TerminalFeed dashboard runs on a free, public endpoint. Bitcoin ticks, earthquake alerts, the ISS position, Steam player counts: almost none of it costs money, as long as you respect the provider's limits. Here is what we use, with endpoints, current limits, key requirements and our honest take.

We re-tested every entry in September 2026, and plenty moved. Reddit closed its keyless .json door in late May. abuse.ch has required a free key since June 2025. Open Notify's astronaut list still names a 2024 crew, and SteamSpy's player counts froze. Frankfurter changed domains and grew from about 30 currencies to 206. Where an API died or rotted, the card names its replacement.

> CRYPTO & FINANCE

Coinbase Exchange WebSocket
Real-time trades, tickers and order book updates for Coinbase spot pairs.
Endpoint: wss://ws-feed.exchange.coinbase.com
Rate Limit: No auth for public channels; subscribe within 5 seconds or get dropped
Key Required: No
Fast, tidy JSON, and our first choice for US visitors since Binance blocks American IPs.
Binance WebSocket Streams
Trades, tickers, depth and candlesticks for Binance spot markets.
Endpoint: wss://stream.binance.com:9443/ws/ (data only: wss://data-stream.binance.vision)
Rate Limit: 5 incoming messages/sec, 1,024 streams per connection, 300 connections per 5 min per IP; connections drop at 24 hours
Key Required: No
Still the deepest free crypto stream, but US IP addresses get a 451. Wire up a second exchange before you ship.
Kraken Public REST + WebSocket v2
Tickers, order books, trades and OHLC candles, no account needed.
Endpoint: api.kraken.com/0/public/ + wss://ws.kraken.com/v2
Rate Limit: About 150 WebSocket connection attempts per 10 min per IP, then a 10-minute ban
Key Required: No
When another exchange throttles us, Kraken is usually still answering.
CoinGecko
Prices, market caps, metadata, history and global stats for thousands of assets.
Endpoint: api.coingecko.com/api/v3/
Rate Limit: Keyless calls share a per-IP throttle; the free Demo key gets 100 calls/min and 10,000/month
Key Required: Free Demo key recommended (attribution required)
The most complete free crypto dataset. The monthly cap is what bites, so cache hard.
CoinLore
Price, 24h change, volume and market cap for thousands of coins.
Endpoint: api.coinlore.net/api/tickers/
Rate Limit: No hard limit; about 1 request/sec recommended
Key Required: No
Keyless and dependable, 100 coins per call. It replaced CoinCap, whose keyless v2 is gone (v3 needs a key).
Hyperliquid Info API
Mid prices, order books, funding and open interest for Hyperliquid perps.
Endpoint: POST api.hyperliquid.xyz/info
Rate Limit: 1,200 weight/min per IP; allMids costs 2, most info requests 20
Key Required: No
One POST returns every market's mid price. Our Open Interest panel is built on it.
Alternative.me (Fear & Greed Index)
The daily Crypto Fear & Greed Index with full history.
Endpoint: api.alternative.me/fng/
Rate Limit: None documented
Key Required: No
One number, always there. Commercial use is allowed if attribution sits right next to the data.
mempool.space
Bitcoin fee estimates, mempool stats, blocks, addresses and Lightning data.
Endpoint: mempool.space/api/
Rate Limit: Enforced but unpublished; 429s for excess, bans for repeat offenders
Key Required: No
The reference for Bitcoin network data, and open source, so heavy users can self-host.
Frankfurter
Daily exchange rates from 98 central banks and official sources: 206 currencies, back to 1948.
Endpoint: api.frankfurter.dev/v2/rates
Rate Limit: No quotas; abuse is throttled
Key Required: No
Free for commercial use. The old api.frankfurter.app now 301-redirects to the deprecated but still running v1.

> NEWS & SOCIAL

Hacker News (Firebase API)
Top, new and best stories, comments and user profiles.
Endpoint: hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/
Rate Limit: "There is currently no rate limit," per the docs
Key Required: No
Rock solid, but top stories arrive as bare IDs, so one front page means 30 item calls. Cache them.
Bluesky Public API
Public profiles, posts, feeds and threads.
Endpoint: public.api.bsky.app/xrpc/
Rate Limit: Cached and "generous," no published number (3,000 per 5 min per IP applies to authenticated PDS traffic)
Key Required: No (this host does not accept auth)
The easiest social API right now. Jetstream serves the firehose as plain JSON.
Reddit RSS
Subreddit and comment feeds in Atom format: append .rss to a Reddit URL.
Endpoint: reddit.com/r/{subreddit}/.rss
Rate Limit: Tight; watch the x-ratelimit-remaining header
Key Required: No (.json now returns 403 without OAuth)
Reddit shut off unauthenticated .json in late May 2026. RSS still worked in September. Don't build anything critical on it.

> WORLD DATA

USGS Earthquake Feeds
Global earthquakes in GeoJSON: magnitude, location, depth, tsunami flag.
Endpoint: earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/feed/v1.0/summary/
Rate Limit: None; static files regenerated every minute
Key Required: No
Twenty ready-made feeds (five magnitude cuts, four time windows). Public domain and bulletproof.
Open-Meteo
Forecasts, historical weather, air quality and marine data for any coordinates.
Endpoint: api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast
Rate Limit: 600/min, 5,000/hr, 10,000/day, 300,000/month
Key Required: No
The best free weather API, with a catch people skip: the free tier is non-commercial only.
National Weather Service API
US forecasts, observations, watches and warnings.
Endpoint: api.weather.gov
Rate Limit: Unpublished; throttled calls can usually retry after about 5 seconds
Key Required: No, but a User-Agent naming your app is mandatory
Free, official, US-only. /alerts/active is the best free severe-weather feed in the States.
GDACS (Global Disaster Alerting)
Alerts for earthquakes, tropical cyclones, floods, droughts and volcanoes worldwide.
Endpoint: gdacs.org/xml/rss.xml
Rate Limit: None documented
Key Required: No
Old-school RSS, but the green, orange and red alert levels are made for dashboards.
Seismic Portal (EMSC)
European earthquake catalog with a real-time WebSocket push.
Endpoint: wss://www.seismicportal.eu/standing_order/websocket
Rate Limit: None documented
Key Required: No
Pairs well with USGS: one pushes, the other you poll. Data is CC BY 4.0, so credit EMSC.

> DEV & TECH

GitHub REST API
Repositories, users, issues, pull requests, releases and search.
Endpoint: api.github.com
Rate Limit: 60 req/hr unauthenticated, 5,000 with a token; unauthenticated search is 10/min
Key Required: No, but use a token
Sixty an hour vanishes fast. A free personal access token multiplies it by 83.
Stack Exchange API
Questions, answers, tags and users across Stack Overflow and the network.
Endpoint: api.stackexchange.com/2.3/
Rate Limit: 300 req/day keyless, 10,000 with a free key; over 30 req/sec per IP gets banned
Key Required: No (a free key helps a lot)
Obey the backoff field. Keyless quota is shared by every app on your IP.
Statuspage JSON
Live status for GitHub, Cloudflare, Discord, Reddit and other Atlassian Statuspage users.
Endpoint: {status-domain}/api/v2/status.json
Rate Limit: None documented
Key Required: No
Use summary.json for per-component detail. It is how our status monitor works.

> SPACE

Where the ISS At + People in Space JSON
Live ISS position, altitude and velocity, plus who is in orbit right now.
Endpoint: api.wheretheiss.at/v1/satellites/25544 + corquaid.github.io/international-space-station-APIs/JSON/people-in-space.json
Rate Limit: Roughly 1 req/sec for the position API
Key Required: No
These replaced Open Notify (HTTP-only, crew list stuck in 2024). The roster is community-maintained, so sanity-check it.
The Space Devs (Launch Library 2)
Upcoming and past launches, agencies, astronauts and stations.
Endpoint: ll.thespacedevs.com/2.3.0/
Rate Limit: 15 req/hr free (check yours at /2.3.0/api-throttle/)
Key Required: No
The most complete launch database we know of. RocketLaunch.Live's free next-five feed makes a good backup.
NASA APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day with its write-up, back to 1995.
Endpoint: api.nasa.gov/planetary/apod
Rate Limit: 1,000 req/hr with your own key; DEMO_KEY allows 30/hr and 50/day per IP
Key Required: Yes (free, instant)
Get your own key; DEMO_KEY runs dry fast from cloud hosts.
NOAA Space Weather (SWPC)
K-index, solar X-ray flux, aurora forecasts and alerts as static JSON.
Endpoint: services.swpc.noaa.gov/json/
Rate Limit: None documented
Key Required: No
No signup, just files. The K-index alone makes a solid aurora widget.

> SECURITY

URLhaus + ThreatFox (abuse.ch)
Malware distribution URLs, plus indicators of compromise like C2 servers and payload hashes.
Endpoint: urlhaus-api.abuse.ch/v1/ + threatfox-api.abuse.ch/api/v1/
Rate Limit: Fair use; bulk dumps refresh every 5 minutes
Key Required: Yes, a free Auth-Key (mandatory since June 30, 2025)
One free key from auth.abuse.ch covers both; skip it and you get a 401. Commercial use may need a paid plan.
CISA KEV (Known Exploited Vulnerabilities)
The US government's catalog of vulnerabilities exploited in the wild.
Endpoint: cisa.gov/sites/default/files/feeds/known_exploited_vulnerabilities.json
Rate Limit: None (static file, CSV too)
Key Required: No
1,717 entries in the September 21, 2026 catalog. If a CVE is listed, attackers are already using it.
Shodan InternetDB
Open ports, known CVEs, hostnames and tags for any IPv4 address.
Endpoint: internetdb.shodan.io/{ip}
Rate Limit: None published; data refreshes weekly
Key Required: No
Free for non-commercial use: fine at work, not inside a product you sell. Try your own IP.

> PREDICTION MARKETS

Polymarket (Gamma API)
Markets, events, odds, volume and resolution rules.
Endpoint: gamma-api.polymarket.com
Rate Limit: 4,000 req/10s overall, 300 req/10s on /markets; excess is queued, not rejected
Key Required: No
If responses suddenly crawl, you are being queued.

> ENTERTAINMENT

Steam Charts (Steam Web API)
Top games by live concurrent players, straight from Valve.
Endpoint: api.steampowered.com/ISteamChartsService/GetGamesByConcurrentPlayers/v1/
Rate Limit: None published
Key Required: No
This replaced SteamSpy, whose Counter-Strike count is stuck at exactly 1,013,936 under the old CS:GO name. It is undocumented, so treat it as unofficial.
Dog CEO + The Cat API
Random dog photos by breed, and random cats with breed data.
Endpoint: dog.ceo/api/breeds/image/random + api.thecatapi.com/v1/images/search
Rate Limit: Dog CEO documents none; the Cat API's free plan is 10,000 requests/month
Key Required: No (a free Cat API key for real volume)
Together they power our Daily Paws panel. Zero regrets.

> REFERENCE

Wikimedia REST + EventStreams
"On this day" events and a live SSE stream of every Wikipedia edit.
Endpoint: en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/feed/onthisday/ + stream.wikimedia.org/v2/stream/recentchange
Rate Limit: New in 2026: 10 req/min unidentified, 200 req/min with a proper User-Agent
Key Required: No
Send a User-Agent with contact details. The api.wikimedia.org routes are being retired gradually, so use per-wiki URLs.
ZenQuotes
Random and daily quotes with author attribution.
Endpoint: zenquotes.io/api/random
Rate Limit: 5 req per 30 sec per IP
Key Required: No (attribution link required)
Pull the /api/quotes batch once and rotate locally instead of calling per page view.

> How We Keep 30+ Upstreams Honest

Calling this many APIs straight from a browser would burn through half these limits before lunch. The dashboard never does. Every request goes through our own backend, which caches each upstream on its own schedule, shares one answer with every visitor, and serves the last good copy when a provider throttles or goes dark. The strictest feeds are fetched on a timer, so a traffic spike never becomes a burst of upstream calls.

We also watch for the quieter failure: a feed that still answers 200 but has stopped changing. SteamSpy and Open Notify are textbook cases, and the FEED HEALTH panel on the dashboard tracks it live.

Building your own dashboard, bot or agent? Cache first, attribute where asked, and keep a second source for anything you can't live without. Our rate limit guide covers the mechanics. Happy building.