Music APIs

Freesound gives you search access to a huge library of Creative Commons sound effects and music samples, letting you browse packs and find similar sounds by audio content.

Token auth covers search and previews; downloading original quality files needs OAuth2 login instead of just an API key.

iTunes Search queries Apple's media store catalog for songs, albums, artists, movies and podcasts by term and country, returning JSON with no signup and no API key at all.

No API key or account needed; Apple documents a soft limit of about 20 search calls per minute.

Discogs exposes its crowd sourced database of music releases, artists and labels for search, collection and marketplace data, authenticated with OAuth or a simpler personal access token.

Authenticated calls allow 60 requests per minute versus 25 for unauthenticated ones; a personal access token is easier to set up than full OAuth.

Bandcamp's API covers account info, sales reports and merch orders for labels and fulfillment partners, using OAuth2 tokens that expire after an hour and need manual approval first.

Access requires emailing Bandcamp a description of your intended use before they issue OAuth2 credentials; access tokens last one hour.

Deezer's API exposes its music catalog, charts, playlists and user libraries for search and playback metadata, free to use once you register an app and accept its terms.

Free for public catalog reads after app registration; accessing or changing a user's own library needs an OAuth login.

Genius provides song, artist and album metadata plus crowdsourced annotations and search, reached through OAuth2 after registering a free app on its developer site.

Free app registration gives you a client id and secret; OAuth2 user login is only required for actions tied to an account.

Jamendo's API searches and streams over half a million Creative Commons licensed tracks, with more than twenty read methods plus write methods for likes and favorites.

Free with an API key after accepting the terms of use; OAuth2 is only needed for methods that touch a user's own library.

Songkick's API covers the world's concert and gig database, letting you search events, artist tour history and venues after applying for an api key on their site.

Requests for student, educational or hobby projects are not approved; commercial access needs a paid licensing agreement.

Last.fm's API covers music discovery, scrobbled listening history, and artist, album and track metadata, open to anyone with a free api key from their account page.

Free for personal projects; Last.fm asks you to email them first if you plan commercial or academic research use of the data.

AI Mastering runs automated audio mastering jobs, letting you upload a track, set target loudness and mastering strength, then download the finished master by api.

Audiomack's API reaches songs, albums, playlists and artist profiles on the streaming hub, authenticated with OAuth 1.0a and required to run strictly over https.

MusicBrainz is an open encyclopedia of music metadata covering artists, releases and recordings, free to query without login for anything but submissions.

Completely free with no signup for lookups; every client must stay under one request per second and send an identifying user agent header.

Openwhyd's API lets you pull public playlists and track lists posted by users in JSON, with a separate login protected endpoint for managing your own account.

TheAudioDB returns artist, album, track and music video metadata plus artwork, usable right away with a shared free test key before you get your own.

Free tier uses test key 123 at 30 requests per minute; an 8 dollar a month premium plan raises that to 100 requests per minute and unlocks the v2 api.

Lyrics.ovh is a bare bones lyrics lookup, returning full song lyrics as JSON for an artist and title pair through a single GET request with no key needed.

SoundCloud's API handles track uploads, playback, search and social actions like follows and likes, secured with OAuth 2.1 and PKCE for user authorization.

New API access now requires a SoundCloud Artist Pro subscription; client credentials are capped at 50 tokens per app every 12 hours.

Gaana's community built wrapper extracts song, album and artist metadata plus playable stream links from India's Gaana service, given an existing song url to query.

TasteDive's api recommends similar artists, movies and shows from a seed you give it, working with a handful of test calls before you need a free access key.

A free access key unlocks 300 requests per hour; request it from your TasteDive account's api access page after signing up.

7digital, now branded MassiveMusic, licenses a catalog of over 100 million tracks for streaming, downloads and royalty reporting through an OAuth 1.0 signed api.

This is a b2b platform, not self serve; you need a commercial partner agreement before MassiveMusic issues consumer keys, and limits are set per contract.

Spotify's Web API retrieves artist, album, playlist and show metadata and can control playback, authorized through an app you register on its developer dashboard.

Registering an app and getting a token is free; using playback control endpoints requires the listener to have a Spotify Premium account.

Phishin archives legal live recordings of the band Phish, covering shows, tracks, venues and tours, with authenticated endpoints for user playlists and likes.

Genrenator invents random music genre names and short genre backstories through two simple endpoints, needing no signup and inviting unlimited casual use.

Radio Browser indexes internet radio stations worldwide with metadata and click stats, completely free, open source, and usable without any registration.

Fully free for commercial or personal use with no key needed; you can even self host a mirror of the whole service on your own server.

KKBOX's Open API reaches its Asian music library, playlists and charts, requiring an OAuth2 app registered through the KKBOX developer portal first.

Songlink, now called Odesli, takes one streaming link or search query and returns matching links across every platform a song is available on.

No key is needed for casual use at 10 requests per minute; Odesli has stopped issuing new keys and now gates higher limits behind an allowlist form.

Mixcloud's API reads shows, users and tags and can upload or edit shows, follow users and repost favorites, needing an OAuth2 token for anything but reads.

Every action type, reads, writes, comments and uploads, has its own rate limit; the docs say to contact support if you need a higher ceiling.

Musixmatch's API searches a large catalog of songs and lyrics, with a free developer plan returning lyric previews rather than complete synced lyrics.

The free tier allows 2,000 calls per day but only returns partial lyric previews; full synced lyrics need a paid commercial license.

JioSaavn's data comes through an unofficial Python wrapper that pulls song, album and artist metadata, thumbnails and lyrics, with no api key required at all.

Bandsintown's api returns artist profiles, follower counts and event listings with venues, dates and ticket links, authenticated by an app_id key in the url.

No published rate limit or pricing; request a free app_id by contacting Bandsintown's api support email directly.