A
API-Football
Football data API with 850+ leagues, live scores, and player stats.
Best Overall
Free Tier
9.4
Quality Score
Sport
Football
Leagues
850+
Protocol
REST
Pricing
Free + Paid
Our Verdict
API-Football is the strongest starting point for most football developers. The free tier is large enough to prototype real features, the coverage map is unusually broad for the price, and the REST API is consistent enough to ship quickly. Support is community-first, so teams with strict SLAs should budget for a paid plan or a secondary provider.
Strengths
- Generous free tier with 100 calls/day.
- 850+ leagues including lower divisions.
- Official SDKs for JS, Python, PHP, and Go.
- Reliable live-score push cadence.
Trade-offs
- No native WebSocket or GraphQL.
- Support is community-led on free tier.
- Odds coverage is narrower than dedicated odds APIs.
- Historical depth varies by league.
Benchmarks
38ms
Avg Latency
99.8%
Uptime (30d)
0.3%
Error Rate
850+
Leagues Covered
Pricing
Free
$0
- 100 calls/day
- Core endpoints
- Community support
Popular
Starter
$19/mo
- 10k calls/day
- All endpoints
- Email support
Pro
$79/mo
- 100k calls/day
- Priority support
- Custom terms
Developer Experience
| Documentation | docs.api-football.com |
| OpenAPI / Postman | Postman collection available |
| SDKs | JavaScript, Python, PHP, Go |
| Authentication | Header API key |
| Rate limits | Tier-based per day |
Still deciding?
Compare API-Football side-by-side with SportMonks or any other provider.