Mediastack API
Delivers real-time news data from 7500+ sources across 50+ languages via a simple REST API with multilingual support.
Score Breakdown
⚙ Agent Friendliness
🔒 Security
Critical: free tier transmits over HTTP; API key in query parameter; TLS only available on paid plans — significant security gap
⚡ Reliability
Best When
Building multilingual news monitoring or international content features where source breadth across languages matters more than depth.
Avoid When
You need high request volume, full article text, or deep historical archives.
Use Cases
- • Multilingual news monitoring and aggregation
- • Country-specific news feeds
- • Keyword-based news alerting across multiple languages
- • Content pipelines requiring international news coverage
- • Lightweight news widgets and dashboards
Not For
- • High-volume production use on free tier (500 req/month limit)
- • Full article body text (snippets only)
- • Historical news retrieval beyond recent content
Interface
Authentication
Single API key passed as query parameter; no header-based auth option on free tier
Pricing
HTTPS requires paid plan; free tier sends data over HTTP which is a security concern for production use
Agent Metadata
Known Gotchas
- ⚠ Free tier uses HTTP not HTTPS — agents must use paid plan for secure production use
- ⚠ 500 req/month free limit is extremely low for agents in loops
- ⚠ API key passed in URL query string on free tier risks exposure in logs
- ⚠ Part of Apilayer ecosystem; service quality tied to Apilayer platform reliability
Alternatives
Full Evaluation Report
Detailed scoring breakdown, competitive positioning, security analysis, and improvement recommendations for Mediastack API.
Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-03-06.