Esports data · United States

Riot Games API
Official Riot Games developer API giving League of Legends player, match-history, ranked and live-game data, with free developer keys and a production approval path.
Facts verified against the provider's site on
Tone of public discussions, liked vs criticised points, reliability complaints; not enough public discussion to judge.
Computed from public data only; uptime and latency are not measured yet. Enterprise feeds that sell by contract score lower on transparency by design. How the score works
- Starting price
- Not public
- Free access
- Free tier
- Sports
- 1 (Esports)
- Live data
- Not disclosed
- Delivery
- Polling only (REST)
- Discussions
- 70 threads
- GitHub adoption
- 2.9k repos
Best for
League of Legends tools that need player, ranked and match history data from the official Riot API.
Not ideal for
Betting or esports tournament feeds, and other games: this is League of Legends game data only.
Limitations to check
- − Free dev key is rate-limited
- − Production use needs an approved application
- − Rate limits are not on the saved page
- − Saved text does not cover commercial or betting rules
Written from the provider's own pages (source).
Last checked 2026-11-03
Riot Games API at a glance
- What is Riot Games API best for?
- League of Legends tools that need player, ranked and match history data from the official Riot API. Not ideal for: Betting or esports tournament feeds, and other games: this is League of Legends game data only.
- How much does Riot Games API cost?
- Riot Games API does not publish prices on the pages we checked.
- Does Riot Games API have a free tier?
- Yes. Riot Games API lists a free plan called "Developer key".
- What does Riot Games API cover?
- Riot Games API is a esports data. Its sports: Esports; data: Historical data, Player stats, Results, Team stats.
- Does Riot Games API have a WebSocket or streaming API?
- No streaming is listed. Riot Games API delivers data by REST, so you poll for updates.
- What do developers say about Riot Games API?
- Official Riot API for League of Legends, TFT and Legends of Runeterra data, with free dev keys. Mentions are mostly old announcements: launch, an early scraping ban pushing developers to the API, match-history deadlines, and API challenges. Libraries such as Cassiopeia show lasting use, but there is little recent user opinion on limits or quality.
- What are the alternatives to Riot Games API?
- Close alternatives in the SportDex catalog: OpenDota, PandaScore, Abios, Data Sports Group, Cito API.
Commercial decision
Pricing & plan limits
| Plan | Price | Requests | What's included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer key | Free | — | Free dev key, rate-limited; production key requires applicationsource |
Game data, not a tournament or betting feed. Rate limits and key renewal not on the crawled page.
Before choosing a paid plan, confirm
• What counts as one request (per call, per market, per region?)
• What happens when you exceed the quota: blocked or billed
• Whether live and historical data are on your plan
• Whether your use (public app, betting, resale) is licensed
The critical question
Data coverage
- Sports
- Esports
- Data types
- Historical dataPlayer statsResultsTeam stats
- Key competitions
- Not disclosed
- Competitions
- Not disclosed
- Live / in-play
- Not disclosed
- Women's competitions
- Not disclosed
- Betting markets
- Not disclosed
- Bookmaker regions
- Not disclosed
- Bookmakers
- Not disclosed
- History depth
- Not disclosed
- Update frequency
- Not disclosed
- Name languages
- Not disclosed
- ID mapping
- Not disclosed
Coverage often depends on the plan; confirm the exact league and season on your plan.
Before you build
Usage rights & access
- Commercial use
- Not disclosed
- Betting products
- Not disclosed
- Redistribution
- Not disclosed
- Storing data
- Not disclosed
- Attribution
- Not disclosed
- Logos & photos
- Not disclosed
- Who can buy
- Individuals, Companiessource
- Verification (KYC)
- Not disclosed
- Not available in
- Not disclosed
- Only available in
- Not disclosed
Developer-ready evaluation
Integration & documentation
- Protocols
- REST
- Formats
- JSON
- Authentication
- api key
- SDKs
- Not disclosed
- OpenAPI spec
- Not disclosed
- Claimed latency
- Not disclosed
- Status page
- Not disclosed
- Sandbox / test keys
- Not disclosed
- Support
- Not disclosed
- SLA uptime
- Not disclosed
Preview brief
# Integration brief: Riot Games API Goal: build a feature on Riot Games API data. Use only the official documentation below as the source of truth. ## Known facts (from SportDex, verify before relying on them) - Website: https://developer.riotgames.com - Docs: https://developer.riotgames.com/ - Sports: Esports - Data: Historical data, Player stats, Results, Team stats - Protocols: REST; formats: json - Auth: api_key - Free plan: Developer key - Note: Game data, not a tournament or betting feed. Rate limits and key renewal not on the crawled page. ## Verify before writing code - live update frequency - whether commercial use is allowed on the plan you pick - exact endpoint paths, parameters and response fields (read the official docs, do not guess) ## Implementation rules - Keep the API key on the server (environment variable, backend route or edge function); never ship it to the browser. - Cache responses and respect rate limits; count how many requests each screen triggers. - Handle errors explicitly: invalid key, quota exceeded (429), missing fields, empty fixtures, timeouts. - Start with one demo request and log the raw response before building UI on assumed field names.
Data quality signals
Data source & company
- Official partners
- Not disclosed
- How data is collected
- official feed
- Certifications
- Not disclosed
- Payment methods
- Not disclosed
- Minimum contract
- Not disclosed
- Country
- United States
- Founded
- Not disclosed
Reddit · Hacker News · Stack Overflow · GitHub · YouTube
What developers say
Official Riot API for League of Legends, TFT and Legends of Runeterra data, with free dev keys. Mentions are mostly old announcements: launch, an early scraping ban pushing developers to the API, match-history deadlines, and API challenges. Libraries such as Cassiopeia show lasting use, but there is little recent user opinion on limits or quality.
Praised for
- Official API with free developer keys
- Long-lived community libraries and contests
Complaints
- Scraping not allowed, API-only policy
Our summary of public discussions, not a rating. Vendor posts are not counted as user opinion.
Discussions
- Riot wants any 3rd party applications (like lolnexus,...) to stop scraping their live services before October 1str/leagueoflegends · 2014-08
- Riot finally releases API for current game infor/leagueoflegends · 2015-02
- [PSA] If you're a developer working with the Riot Games API, an important deadline regarding match history is just around the corner (September 22nd)r/leagueoflegends · 2015-09
- It doesn't seem like NURF is a joke after all... Riot's having a contest using the data from the new game mode.r/leagueoflegends · 2015-03
- Riot API now supports TFT, developers now can use data for automatic (machine learning supported) TFT analysis!r/CompetitiveTFT · 2019-12
- API Challenge winners announcedr/leagueoflegends · 2015-05
- PSA: You can download the full-size illustrations for each card from the LoR Dev Portal (see Set Bundles)r/LegendsOfRuneterra · 2021-01
- Champion Mastery API Liver/leagueoflegends · 2016-01
- Riot API now supports TFT, developers can use data for automatic (machine learning supported) TFT analysis!r/TeamfightTactics · 2019-12
- /api: Logo Rebrandr/leagueoflegends · 2018-03
- The Riot Games API Challenge is about to spawnr/leagueoflegends · 2015-03
- The Riot Games API Challenge 2016 (4/22 - 5/9)r/leagueoflegends · 2016-04
Open-source projects using it
Shortlist next steps
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Evidence & transparency
Official sources
- https://developer.riotgames.com
- https://developer.riotgames.com/
- https://developer.riotgames.com/terms
Facts were extracted from the provider's own pages on 2026-11-03. Empty fields mean the provider does not say, not that the feature is missing. How we know