# openfootball

> Community-maintained public-domain football database holding league and cup fixtures, results and goals in plain-text Football.TXT files and JSON on GitHub.

Canonical page: https://sportdex.net/providers/openfootball/  
Last checked: 2026-11-03  
SportDex Score: 53/100 (rank 41; popularity 36, community 52, transparency 90, developer experience 48)

## Facts
- Type: Free / open data
- Website: https://openfootball.github.io
- Documentation: https://openfootball.github.io/docs/
- Pricing page: unknown
- Sports: Football (soccer)
- Data types: Fixtures, Historical data, Results, Standings
- Protocols: not disclosed
- Delivery: Not disclosed
- Live / in-play: no
- Free tier: yes
- Cheapest public paid plan: not public
- Key competitions: English Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga, Ligue 1, Champions League, Europa League, World Cup, Copa Libertadores, Copa America
- Commercial use: Allowed
- Redistribution: Allowed
- Authentication: none

## Plans
| Plan | Price | Requests | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free (public domain) | Free | — | Public domain datasets, no key |

## Who it is for

Best for: Football projects that want public-domain fixtures and results as plain-text or JSON files with no key and no usage limits.

Not ideal for: Apps needing live scores, detailed player stats or a hosted API; data is fetched from GitHub repositories and is not live.

Use cases: Historical results datasets; Tournament fixture apps; Teaching and open-data projects

Limitations:
- No hosted API; files come from GitHub
- No live or in-play data
- Community-maintained, coverage varies by competition

## Quick answers

**What is openfootball best for?** Football projects that want public-domain fixtures and results as plain-text or JSON files with no key and no usage limits. Not ideal for: Apps needing live scores, detailed player stats or a hosted API; data is fetched from GitHub repositories and is not live.

**How much does openfootball cost?** openfootball does not publish prices on the pages we checked.

**Does openfootball have a free tier?** Yes. openfootball lists a free plan called "Free (public domain)".

**What does openfootball cover?** openfootball is a free / open data. Its sports: Football (soccer); data: Fixtures, Historical data, Results, Standings.

**Can I use openfootball data commercially or for betting?** According to the public terms of openfootball — commercial use: allowed; redistribution: allowed; storing data: allowed.

**What do developers say about openfootball?** 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.

**What are the alternatives to openfootball?** Close alternatives in the SportDex catalog: Football Charts, Jolpica-F1, CollegeBasketballData.com, snooker.org API, FootyStats.

## 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.

Praised for: Public domain, no API key; Handy for World Cup and league fixtures; Used in several open-source projects

Complaints: Static files, no live data; Custom plain-text format questioned

## Method
Facts were read from the provider's own pages on 2026-11-03. Empty fields mean the provider does not say, not that a feature is missing. Method: https://sportdex.net/methodology/