Media
Images, video, audio and charts
APIs for images, charts, video and audio: make charts, QR codes, placeholder images and website screenshots, find free photos, icons and sound effects, or work with video sites.
Colormind API
Colormind generates colour palettes with a machine learning model, for example to suggest colours for a website or illustration. POST a JSON request to colormind.io/api/ and get five RGB colours back; you can fix some colours and ...
Free Thumbnail API
Create amazing thumbnails from websites for all your projects. Free and Paid API. Currently the maximum size for a screenshot is 1024 by 768. This API can create fullpage screenshots, not just the part of the screen above the ...
icon.horse
icon.horse returns the favicon of any website as an image, for example to show site icons next to links in a list or bookmark manager. Request icon.horse/icon/ and use the URL directly in an img tag; if a site has no icon ...
Iconify API
The Iconify API serves more than 200,000 open source icons from over 150 icon sets (Material Design, Font Awesome, Tabler and many more) as SVG. Request an icon by set and name, change its colour, size or rotation in the URL, or ...
placehold.co
placehold.co creates placeholder images of any size from the URL, for mock-ups and prototypes: request placehold.co/600x400 and you get a grey image with its size written on it. Choose the background and text colours, your own ...
RoboHash
RoboHash creates a unique image from any text, such as a user name, e-mail hash or IP address, so users get a consistent avatar without uploading one. Request robohash.org/.png and choose robots, monsters, robot heads, cats ...
The Color API
The Color API gives information about any colour and builds colour schemes. Send a colour as hex, RGB, HSL or CMYK to /id and get its name, conversions to other formats and a contrast colour; /scheme returns matching colours for ...
UI Avatars
UI Avatars creates avatar images with a person's initials, for example as a default profile picture next to user names. Request ui-avatars.com/api/?name=John+Doe and set size, background and text colour, font size, rounding and ...
Compare the image, video and audio APIs
| Service | API key | Formats | Free use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colormind API | Not needed | JSON | Free for personal and non-commercial use, no key needed; commercial use by arrangement. |
| Free Thumbnail API | Needed, free | XML | Free and Paid API. |
| icon.horse | Not needed | – | Free on the Hobby plan, 1,000 icons a month with no account; paid plans raise the limit and add custom fallbacks. |
| Iconify API | Not needed | – | Free, no key needed; the server is open source and can be self-hosted. |
| placehold.co | Not needed | – | Free, no key needed. |
| RoboHash | Not needed | – | Free, no key needed; images are CC-BY, so credit RoboHash. |
| The Color API | Not needed | JSON | Free, no key needed. |
| UI Avatars | Not needed | – | Free, no key needed and no sign-up. |
Questions
Which free image, video and audio APIs work without an API key?
Colormind API, icon.horse, Iconify API, placehold.co, RoboHash, The Color API and UI Avatars work without a key, according to their documentation. Most keyless services ask you to keep the number of requests reasonable, and some ask for a User-Agent that names your app.
Are these image, video and audio APIs really free?
The services here can be used without paying, at least on a free plan or free tier, often with limits such as a number of requests per day or non-commercial use only. The table above quotes what each service says about its free use; check the provider's own terms before you rely on it.
How up to date is this list?
The address of every service is checked about once a week, and services that stop working or stop being free are removed. This list last changed on November 8th, 2026.