Overview
The Coffee API is a dead-simple, no-auth service that returns a random high-quality coffee photo every time you call it. You just hit one endpoint and receive a direct image URL, making it perfect for placeholder images, themed UI decorations, or a fun daily-photo feature. There are no published rate limits, but it is a hobby project so treat it gently.
Beginner Tip
Call the /random.json endpoint to get a URL string you can plug into an img tag, rather than streaming the image binary directly.
Measurement Record
What actually happened when we called this API from our own infrastructure. Every value below was recorded by the request, not copied from the provider's documentation.
- Request
- GET https://coffee.alexflipnote.dev/random.json
- Result
- HTTP 200 · application/json · 71 bytes · compressed
- Response time
- 222 ms (median of 3) · fastest 214 ms
- Transport
- TLSv1.3 · TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 · certificate issued by Google Trust Services
- Browser CORS
- No Access-Control-Allow-Origin header — call it from a server, not the browser
- Served by
- cloudflare
- Recorded
- 2026-08-10
Fields Returned
Top-level fields present in the response we captured, with the type and value we actually received.
| Field | Type | Value received |
|---|---|---|
| file | string (url) | https://coffee.alexflipnote.dev/7Yn91EMWiV4_c… |
Captured Response
Captured from a real request to https://coffee.alexflipnote.dev/random.json on 2026-08-10. Long arrays and nested objects are truncated to keep the shape readable.
{
"file": "https://coffee.alexflipnote.dev/7Yn91EMWiV4_coffee.png"
} Field Reference
file Direct HTTPS URL to a random coffee image that can be used in an img src attribute. Implementation Example
Calls a real endpoint of this API. Replace any placeholder credentials with your own key.
const url = "https://coffee.alexflipnote.dev/random.json";
const response = await fetch(url);
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${response.status}`);
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data); What Can You Build?
Note: These code examples are AI-generated and unverified. Always refer to the official API documentation for accurate usage.
How This API Fails
We deliberately sent this API a broken request and recorded exactly what came back on 2026-08-10. Knowing the shape of an error before you hit it makes error handling much easier to write.
Returned an HTML error page rather than JSON — worth knowing if your client assumes every response can be parsed as JSON.
Common Errors & Troubleshooting
Generated guidance based on this API's documentation, not observed by us. Treat it as a starting point and check against the provider's own error reference.
Measured Score Breakdown
Live HTTP request to the API endpoint
Fully tested on Aug 10, 2026
Technical Specifications
Related Tags
Similar APIs
View All →BaconMockup
⭐ Beginner's PickBaconMockup is a fun, free API that serves placeholder images featuring bacon — great for filling in image slots during web or app development when you just need something visual.
Foodish
⭐ Beginner's PickFoodish is a fun, free API that returns a random food dish image URL each time you call it.
Fruityvice
⭐ Beginner's PickFruityvice is a free, no-auth API that provides nutritional and botanical data for dozens of common fruits.
Open Brewery DB
⭐ Beginner's PickOpen Brewery DB is a free, open-source API that provides data on breweries, cideries, and bottle shops across multiple countries.
Open Food Facts
⭐ Beginner's PickOpen Food Facts is a free, community-driven database of food products from around the world, containing nutritional facts, ingredients, allergens, and Eco-scores.