JSONPlaceholder API: Free Fake REST API by Typicode

JSONPlaceholder is a free fake REST API by Typicode at https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com. It serves fixed sample data (posts, comments, albums, photos, todos and users) over plain HTTP. You need no signup and no API key, and it answers cross-origin requests from the browser. Writes (POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE) return realistic responses, but nothing is saved.

Below is everything you need to use it well: the endpoints, working fetch and Python examples, the query parameters it actually supports (tested in October 2026), its limits, and when to switch to something else.

JSONPlaceholder endpoints and resources

The JSONPlaceholder home page lists six resources. The counts below were checked against the live API in October 2026.

Resource	List endpoint	Items	Linked by
Posts	/posts	100	userId
Comments	/comments	500	postId
Albums	/albums	100	userId
Photos	/photos	5,000	albumId
Todos	/todos	200	userId
Users	/users	10

Every resource supports the standard routes: GET /posts, GET /posts/1, POST /posts, PUT /posts/1, PATCH /posts/1 and DELETE /posts/1.

One level of nesting is supported (guide):

• /posts/1/comments
• /albums/1/photos
• /users/1/albums
• /users/1/todos
• /users/1/posts

/posts/1/comments returns the same five comments as /comments?postId=1.

A user object is the richest record. It has nested address (with geo coordinates) and company objects, which makes it useful for testing nested rendering:

{
  "id": 1,
  "name": "Leanne Graham",
  "username": "Bret",
  "email": "Sincere@april.biz",
  "address": { "street": "Kulas Light", "city": "Gwenborough", "geo": { "lat": "-37.3159", "lng": "81.1496" } },
  "company": { "name": "Romaguera-Crona" }
}

(Shortened. The real response also has suite, zipcode, phone, website and more company fields.) Photo records now point to picsum.photos image URLs.

Make your first request

JavaScript (fetch)

This works in any modern browser console and in Node.js 18 or later, both of which have a global fetch:

const res = await fetch('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/1');
const todo = await res.json();
console.log(todo);
// { userId: 1, id: 1, title: 'delectus aut autem', completed: false }

Create a post (fake write)

const res = await fetch('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'Content-type': 'application/json; charset=UTF-8' },
  body: JSON.stringify({ title: 'foo', body: 'bar', userId: 1 }),
});
console.log(res.status);       // 201
console.log(await res.json()); // { title: 'foo', body: 'bar', userId: 1, id: 101 }

PUT /posts/1 echoes back the object you send, PATCH /posts/1 returns post 1 with your changed fields merged in, and DELETE /posts/1 returns 200 with {}.

Python (requests)

import requests

BASE = "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com"

posts = requests.get(f"{BASE}/posts", params={"userId": 1}, timeout=10).json()
print(len(posts))  # 10

new = requests.post(f"{BASE}/posts", json={"title": "foo", "body": "bar", "userId": 1}, timeout=10)
print(new.status_code, new.json()["id"])  # 201 101

curl

curl https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users/1/todos

Filtering, pagination, sorting and relations

The official guide only documents basic filtering. JSONPlaceholder runs on json-server (the classic v0.17 behavior), so more query parameters work. Each line below was tested against the live API in October 2026:

What you want	Request	Result
Filter by field	/posts?userId=1	10 posts
Combine filters	/todos?userId=1&completed=true	user 1's completed todos
Match any of several values	/comments?postId=1&postId=2	10 comments
Paginate	/posts?_page=2&_limit=3	posts 4, 5, 6
Slice	/posts?_start=5&_end=8	posts 6, 7, 8
Sort	/posts?_sort=id&_order=desc&_limit=3	posts 100, 99, 98
Range	/posts?id_gte=98	posts 98 to 100
Full-text search	/posts?q=qui est esse	matching posts
Embed children	/posts/1?_embed=comments	post with a comments array
Expand parent	/posts/1?_expand=user	post with a user object

Paginated responses include an X-Total-Count header (100 for posts) and a Link header with first, prev, next and last URLs. Both are exposed through CORS, so browser code can read them:

const res = await fetch('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts?_page=1&_limit=10');
const total = Number(res.headers.get('X-Total-Count')); // 100
const pages = Math.ceil(total / 10);                     // 10

Because these parameters are not part of the official guide, treat them as convenient but undocumented.

Common mistakes and limitations

• Nothing persists. After POST /posts returns id: 101, GET /posts/101 returns 404, and PUT /posts/101 fails with a server error. If your UI flow creates and then edits an item, keep the created object in local state rather than re-fetching it.
• Every new post gets id 101. That is the next id after the 100 fixed posts. If your app uses ids as React keys, two "created" posts will collide.
• Send JSON with a Content-Type header. Without Content-type: application/json, the body is not parsed as JSON and the response is just { "id": 101 }, without your fields.
• Fixed placeholder data. You cannot add fields or change values, and the text is lorem ipsum. Error cases also cannot be simulated, apart from 404 for ids that don't exist.
• It is a shared public service. Responses are cached at the CDN. Don't use it for load testing, and don't make production code or automated CI tests depend on it. For CI, run a local mock (see below) so a network blip can't fail your build.

When to use something else

Need	Better option
Your own schema, persisted writes, offline or CI	json-server locally: npx json-server db.json serves your own db.json at http://localhost:3000
Product, cart or auth-shaped fake data	DummyJSON
Mocking requests inside frontend tests	Mock Service Worker (MSW) intercepts fetch in the browser and Node
A shared, hosted mock for a team	an API platform's mock server, such as Postman's

Note: as of October 2026, the current json-server on npm is the v1 beta. It uses different query syntax than JSONPlaceholder, for example _per_page instead of _limit and views:gt=100 instead of views_gte=100, so check its README before copying URLs over.

For more free APIs to practice with, browse DevHunt's fake data and testing APIs and the full free APIs directory. If you are choosing an API client for these experiments, see the free Postman alternatives and our Postman basics guide.

FAQ

Does JSONPlaceholder need an API key?

No. There is no signup, key or token. Every endpoint is public over https (and http), and the home page says it is free for everyone.

Does JSONPlaceholder work with CORS from the browser?

Yes. It answers preflight requests and returns Access-Control-Allow-Origin for your page's origin, so fetch from localhost or any site works without a proxy.

Why doesn't my POST, PUT or DELETE change the data?

By design. The guide says write requests are faked: you get the response a real API would send, but the resource is not created, updated or deleted on the server. For real persistence, run json-server locally with your own db.json.

What is typicode?

Typicode is the GitHub handle of the developer who created JSONPlaceholder, json-server and lowdb. That is why the API lives at jsonplaceholder.typicode.com.

Is there a JSONPlaceholder API documentation page?

Yes, the official docs are short: the resource list on the home page and the examples on the guide page. The pagination, sorting and embed parameters shown above come from json-server and are not listed there.