Indie APIs tools

39 apis products built by independent developers and small teams.

Looking to replace something? Amazon SES · SendGrid · Stripe · Paddle · Postmark · Resend · Lemon Squeezy · Mailgun · Stripe Billing · Algolia · Chargebee · Courier

Ably

Realtime pub/sub messaging infrastructure

Ably provides hosted WebSocket pub/sub channels, presence and message history for realtime features like chat and live updates.

Free plan · API, Web · Website ↗

Algolia

Hosted search and discovery API

Algolia provides hosted search, AI-ranked results and recommendations through APIs and front-end UI libraries.

Free plan · API, Web · Website ↗

Apitally

Simple API monitoring and analytics for Python and Node.js

Apitally adds API traffic analytics, error tracking, request logging and uptime alerts to frameworks like FastAPI, Django, Flask, Express and NestJS via a small middleware.

Free plan · Web, API · Website ↗

Beeceptor

Hosted mock API server and HTTP request inspector

Beeceptor gives you an instant endpoint to mock API responses, inspect incoming requests and proxy traffic, without writing code.

Free plan · Web · Website ↗

Bruno

Offline-first, git-friendly API client

Bruno is an open-source API client that stores collections as plain text files in your repo so they can be versioned with git.

Free plan · Mac, Windows, Linux · Website ↗

Creem

Merchant of record payments for SaaS and AI startups

Creem handles payments, subscriptions, tax compliance and revenue splits as a merchant of record for software founders.

Commission · Web, API · Website ↗

Dodo Payments

Global payments and billing for digital products

Dodo Payments is a merchant of record that handles payments, subscriptions, usage billing and tax for SaaS and digital businesses.

Commission · Web, API · Website ↗

Hyperswitch

Open-source payments switch for routing across processors

Hyperswitch, from Juspay, is an open-source payments orchestration layer that connects to many payment processors through one API.

Free plan · Web, Self-hosted, API · Website ↗

Keygen

Software licensing and distribution API

Keygen is a licensing API for issuing license keys, enforcing entitlements and distributing software updates. It is available hosted or self-hosted.

Free plan · API, Web, Self-hosted · Website ↗

Kill Bill

Open-source subscription billing and payments platform

Kill Bill is a self-hosted platform for subscription billing, invoicing and payment integrations.

Free · Self-hosted · Website ↗

Knock

Notification workflows across email, SMS, push and in-app

Knock is a notifications platform that lets developers define cross-channel notification workflows and preferences via API.

Free plan · Web, API · Website ↗

Lago

Open-source metering and usage-based billing

Lago is an open-source billing engine for usage-based, subscription and hybrid pricing that works with existing payment providers.

Free plan · Web, Self-hosted, API · Website ↗

Lemon Squeezy

Payments, tax and subscriptions for software sellers

Lemon Squeezy is a merchant of record for selling software, subscriptions and digital products with checkout, tax handling and licenses.

Commission · Web, API · Website ↗

Loops

Email for SaaS: product, marketing and transactional

Loops is an email platform for software companies that handles transactional emails, onboarding sequences and newsletters.

Free plan · Web, API · Website ↗

MailerSend

Transactional email and SMS API

MailerSend, from the MailerLite team, offers an email and SMS API, SMTP relay, templates and inbound routing.

Free plan · API, Web · Website ↗

Mailgun

Email API for sending, receiving and validating email

Mailgun provides APIs and SMTP for sending and receiving email, plus email validation and deliverability tools.

Free plan · API, Web · Website ↗

Mailtrap

Email testing sandbox plus sending API

Mailtrap catches test emails in a safe sandbox inbox and also offers an email sending API and SMTP for production.

Free plan · Web, API · Website ↗

Meilisearch

Fast open-source search engine with typo tolerance

Meilisearch is a search engine API for instant, typo-tolerant search, with hybrid vector search, available self-hosted or in the cloud.

Free plan · Self-hosted, API, Web · Website ↗

Mockoon

Create mock REST APIs locally in seconds

Mockoon is an open-source desktop app and CLI for designing and running mock APIs locally, with templating, rules and OpenAPI import.

Free plan · Mac, Windows, Linux · Website ↗

Novu

Open-source notification infrastructure and inbox

Novu provides one API for email, SMS, push, chat and an embeddable in-app notification inbox with workflows.

Free plan · Web, Self-hosted, API · Website ↗

OneSignal

Push notifications, in-app messages, email and SMS

OneSignal sends mobile and web push notifications, in-app messages, email and SMS with segmentation and journeys.

Free plan · Web, API, iOS, Android · Website ↗

OpenRouter

One API for hundreds of LLMs from many providers

OpenRouter is a unified, OpenAI-compatible API that routes requests to models from many AI providers with fallback and usage tracking.

Free plan · API, Web · Website ↗

Paddle

Merchant of record for SaaS payments and tax

Paddle processes subscription payments as merchant of record, handling global sales tax, invoicing and billing for software companies.

Commission · Web, API · Website ↗

Plivo

SMS and voice APIs for businesses

Plivo provides APIs for SMS, voice calls, phone numbers and verification for customer communications.

Paid · API, Web · Website ↗

Plunk

Open-source email platform for transactional email

Plunk is an open-source email platform built on AWS SES for sending transactional emails and simple automated campaigns via an API.

Free plan · API, Web, Self-hosted · Website ↗

Polar

Open-source merchant of record for developers

Polar lets developers sell subscriptions, digital products and license keys with usage billing, acting as merchant of record.

Commission · Web, API · Website ↗

Postmark

Transactional email delivery focused on speed and inbox placement

Postmark sends transactional and broadcast email via API or SMTP with separate message streams and detailed delivery logs.

Free plan · API, Web · Website ↗

Proxyman

Modern HTTP debugging proxy for macOS, Windows and Linux

Proxyman captures and inspects HTTP/HTTPS traffic from apps, browsers and iOS/Android devices, with breakpoints, scripting and request mapping.

Free plan · Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS · Website ↗

Pusher

Hosted WebSockets and push notifications

Pusher Channels adds realtime features via hosted WebSockets, and Pusher Beams sends push notifications to apps.

Free plan · API, Web · Website ↗

Pushover

Simple push notifications for scripts, servers and apps

Pushover delivers real-time notifications to iOS, Android and desktop devices from your own scripts, servers and many supported services via a simple API.

Paid · iOS, Android, Web, API · Website ↗

Resend

Email API for developers, with React Email

Resend is a transactional and marketing email API with SDKs for many languages and templates written in React.

Free plan · API, Web · Website ↗

ScreenshotOne

API for rendering website screenshots

ScreenshotOne is an API that renders screenshots and PDFs of web pages, with options to block cookie banners and ads.

Free plan · API · Website ↗

Soketi

Open-source WebSocket server compatible with Pusher

Soketi is a self-hostable WebSocket server that implements the Pusher protocol so existing Pusher clients work with it.

Free · Self-hosted · Website ↗

Telnyx

Communications APIs for voice, SMS and IoT

Telnyx offers programmable voice, messaging, SIP trunking, phone numbers and IoT SIMs on its own private network.

Paid · API, Web · Website ↗

Typesense

Open-source, typo-tolerant search engine

Typesense is an in-memory search engine with typo tolerance, faceting, geo and vector search, self-hosted or via Typesense Cloud.

Free plan · Self-hosted, API, Web · Website ↗

Upstash

Serverless Redis, vector, queue and workflow services

Upstash offers per-request priced serverless Redis, vector database, message queue (QStash) and workflow services over HTTP.

Free plan · Web, API · Website ↗

useSend

Open-source email sending platform built on Amazon SES

useSend (formerly Unsend) is an open-source alternative to Resend and SendGrid that sends through your own SES account.

Free plan · Web, Self-hosted, API · Website ↗

Webhook.site

Instantly inspect, test and automate webhooks

Webhook.site gives you a unique URL and email address to capture and inspect incoming HTTP requests, with optional custom actions to transform and forward them.

Free plan · Web, API · Website ↗

Yaak

Desktop API client for REST, GraphQL, gRPC and WebSockets

Yaak is an open-source desktop API client from the original creator of Insomnia, supporting REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSockets and server-sent events.

Free plan · Mac, Windows, Linux · Website ↗

Ask your AI instead

Add Indie Alternatives to ChatGPT, Claude or Cursor and ask “an indie apis tool that's free for small teams” in your own words, with your budget and platform. Set it up