Best football APIs in 2026

The football (soccer) data APIs developers actually use: who covers it, what it costs to start and what the community says.

How this list is built: Providers that list football (soccer) explicitly, then the strongest multi-sport feeds, ordered by the SportDex Score. SportDex Score explained. No provider pays to be here.

Short answer: football-data.org (64/100), football-data.co.uk (60/100) and ScoreBat Video API (54/100) lead this list of 15 providers in 2026. Last checked 2026-11-04.

1
1. football-data.org
Sports data API
Football API with fixtures, scores, league tables, lineups, scorers and squads; free plan for 12 competitions, paid plans extend competitions, live scores and rate limits, with add-ons for odds and match statistics.
Free tierfrom €12/moLive data31 discussions9.0k GitHub reposMixed
64Score
What developers say
Popular free-tier choice for hobby football projects: World Cup predictors, score trackers, league tables, and a fallback when API-Football quota runs out. Developers like the free key and simple docs. Complaints: free tier gives fixtures and final scores but no shots, xG or lineups, history starts around 2019, and a low request rate.
Liked
- + Free API key good for fixtures and results
- + Frequently chosen for side projects
Watch out
- − No detailed match stats or xG on free tier
- − Limited history before 2019
from €12/moFull profile Website
2
2. football-data.co.uk
Free / open data
Free downloadable CSV archive of historical football results, match statistics and bookmaker odds for many leagues, updated through the season.
Free tier7 discussions3.6k GitHub reposMostly positive
60Score
What developers say
Long-standing free CSV archive of results, match stats and bookmaker odds, the default starting point for football modelling and used by thousands of GitHub projects. Users value the free historical odds, but say league coverage is limited (few lower or secondary leagues) and files are downloads, not a live API.
Liked
- + Free historical results and odds
- + Widely used in models and scrapers
Watch out
- − Limited league coverage
- − Not live or an API
Free tierFull profile Website
3
3. ScoreBat Video API
Video
Football highlight and live-stream video API delivering embeddable player codes by competition or team, with a limited free feed and paid developer plans.
Free tierfrom $69/mo3 discussions68 GitHub repos
54Score
What developers say
Appears to be a free JSON feed of football highlight videos (Scorebat-style), announced in 2019 posts and used by a few small web apps. No user opinions about reliability, licensing or quality in the digest.
from $69/moFull profile Website
4
4. FootyStats
Sports data API
JSON soccer statistics API covering 1,500+ leagues with team, player and match data such as BTTS, corners, cards and over/under figures, sold in league-count packages.
Free tier6 discussions95 GitHub reposMixed
53Score
What developers say
Soccer stats API and CSV downloads covering many leagues, used by betting-model builders and scrapers for BTTS, corners and over/under data. Bettors mention it as an affordable broad source, but several say data has gaps, odd or inconsistent numbers and weaker xG than FBref-style sources. Used with other feeds for odds.
Liked
- + Broad league coverage
- + Betting-oriented stats like BTTS and corners
Watch out
- − Missing or inconsistent data
- − xG quality questioned
Free tierFull profile Website
5
5. openfootball
Free / open data
Community-maintained public-domain football database holding league and cup fixtures, results and goals in plain-text Football.TXT files and JSON on GitHub.
Free tier13 discussions17 GitHub reposNeutral
53Score
What developers say
Free public-domain (CC0) football fixtures and results published as plain text and JSON files on GitHub, with no key needed. Developers use it for World Cup apps, prediction models and tutorials. Limits: static files rather than a live API, and Hacker News commenters debated whether its plain-text format is easy to parse.
Liked
- + Public domain, no API key
- + Handy for World Cup and league fixtures
Watch out
- − Static files, no live data
- − Custom plain-text format questioned
Free tierFull profile Website
6
6. TheStatsAPI
Sports data API
Football API with fixtures, results, match and player stats, xG, lineups, heatmaps and pre-match/live odds from five bookmakers, across 150 competitions (up to 1,196 on request) with 10 years of history.
7-day trialfrom $50/moLive data3 discussions23 GitHub reposMostly negative
50Score
What developers say
Football API with stats, xG and odds. Feedback is thin and unfavourable: one user reported more than twenty missing odds and stats datapoints across top leagues and no reply from support, and another let their subscription lapse while shopping for cheaper options like API-Football, Sportmonks and football-data.org. A handful of small repos use it.
Watch out
- − Missing odds and stats datapoints reported
- − Support slow to respond
from $50/moFull profile Website
7
7. 5DollarFootballAPI
Odds API
Football API offering fixtures, results, standings and Bet365 and other bookmaker odds history including corners and cards, from a free top-5-league tier up to all 1,600+ leagues.
Free tierfrom $5/moLive data15 GitHub repos
50Score
What developers say
Low-cost football API with odds history. The only discussion is a post by someone affiliated with it, and most repos are the vendor's own examples and an MCP server. Listings on API directories exist, but there is no independent user feedback on quality or reliability yet.
from $5/moFull profile Website
8
8. Football Charts
Free / open data
Daily-updated football results, tables, goal timing, model probabilities and season projections for 98 leagues via JSON REST and an MCP server; open CC BY dataset and paid history tiers.
Free tierfrom €9/mo14 GitHub repos
49Score
What developers say
Small football results and projections API with a free keyless tier, MCP server and client libraries covering lower leagues. Every mention found comes from its own maker (a self-disclosed Reddit post, integration requests, companion repos). No independent user feedback on quality, limits or pricing exists yet.
from €9/moFull profile Website
9
9. OpenFoot API
Sports data API
Football REST API with fixtures, standings, lineups, live events, shot-level xG and derived odds and form; free tier, with SSE streams, webhooks and MCP tools on paid plans.
Free tierDemo accessfrom $14/mo⚡ Streaming
49Score
What developers say
Newer football API with a free tier and low-priced paid plans. Only one thread names it, listing it at about $14 a month among cheap options for post-match stats next to Sportmonks and API-Football. A community MCP server and a couple of hobby repos use it; no hands-on reviews yet.
Liked
- + Low-priced paid plan
- + MCP server available
from $14/moFull profile Website
10
10. StrikerAPI
Sports data API
Soccer API with 21 REST and MCP endpoints for standings, lineups, events, shot maps, ratings, odds and player props, billed in monthly credits.
Free tierfrom $19/mo
45Score
What developers say
Soccer data API with REST and hosted MCP server. Only the maker's own MCP directory submissions and repos appear; no independent opinions on data quality, pricing or reliability.
from $19/moFull profile Website
11
11. ClubElo
Free / open data
Club football Elo ratings and fixture probabilities, with history reaching back to 1939 and a free CSV interface.
Free tier153 GitHub reposMostly negative
45Score
What developers say
Free CSV interface for club football Elo ratings and fixture probabilities, used in prediction models, FPL tools and tutorials. Recent GitHub issues show serious reliability trouble: 502 errors on the API since September 2026, a claim it moved behind authentication, then Cloudflare 403 challenges. Projects are adding fallbacks or HTML scraping.
Liked
- + Long Elo history and free CSV access
- + Popular input for prediction models
Watch out
- − API returning 502 since Sept 2026
- − Cloudflare 403 challenges block scrapers
Free tierFull profile Website
12
12. transfermarkt-api
Free / open data
MIT-licensed FastAPI service that wraps Transfermarkt's internal endpoints to return club, player and competition data as JSON. Run it yourself; the public demo is rate limited and for testing only.
Free tier179 GitHub repos
45Score
What developers say
Self-hosted open-source wrapper around Transfermarkt's unofficial endpoints, plus many similar clients, MCP servers and guides on GitHub. Adoption is visible through ~28 repos and a dataset pipeline, but there is no real user discussion about reliability, limits or legality, so the community picture is thin.
Liked
- + Many open-source wrappers and guides exist
Free tierFull profile Website
13
13. BALLDONTLIE
Sports data API
Unified REST API for scores, box scores, stats, odds and player props across 20+ leagues (NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, soccer, tennis, golf, F1, MMA, esports), plus webhooks and an MCP server.
Free tier2-day trialfrom $9.99/moLive data15 discussions902 GitHub reposMostly positive
79Score
What developers say
Long-popular free NBA stats API, now covering NBA, NFL, MLB and EPL with a free tier and paid keys. Beginners use it for tutorials, React projects and portfolio apps; betting and fantasy builders pair it with odds feeds. Recommended as an alternative to nba_api and API-Sports. Little discussion of reliability or pricing.
Liked
- + Free tier and easy start for learners
- + Simple REST endpoints with decades of NBA history
Watch out
- − Free tier limited to subset of endpoints
- − CORS issues for browser apps
from $9.99/moFull profile Website
14
14. Sportmonks
Sports data API
REST API for football with live scores, fixtures, lineups, xG, predictions and odds across 2,200+ leagues, plus separate cricket and Formula 1 APIs.
Free tier14-day trialfrom €29/moLive data40 discussions207 GitHub reposMixed
69Score
What developers say
Widely used paid football data API for side projects, dashboards and betting models, with many wrappers and GitHub repos. Users like the stats depth and reasonable price versus Opta or Sportradar, but call it pricey for hobby use, say premium odds lack player props, and report unreliable live data and sales or custom-plan frustrations.
Liked
- + Solid football stats and many leagues
- + Cheaper than Opta or Sportradar
Watch out
- − Pricey for side projects
- − Live data felt unreliable or slow
from €29/moFull profile Website
15
15. PitchAPI
Sports data API
Free read-only football REST API with fixtures, shots, momentum, events, lineups, player and team stats and derived analytics such as xG timeline, PPDA and field tilt, with Python and TypeScript SDKs.
Free tier
42Score
What developers say
A free football analytics API (xG, momentum, passing networks) announced by its author in a sports analytics forum. Limited by a single small server of about 100 requests per second. Two small repos and one Thai match-analysis video use it alongside API-Football.
Liked
- + Free advanced analytics
Watch out
- − Small hosting capacity
Free tierFull profile Website