RandomDuck API

Beginner's Pick Animals / No Auth Required Beginner HTTPS
Free to Use
63 C
Measured Score 0 50 100 Speed 15/30 Consistency 20/20 Security 20/20 Browser access 0/15 Transparency 8/15 TESTED 2026-08-10

Overview

RandomDuck serves random photos and illustrations of ducks from a community-curated collection, returning a JSON object with the direct image URL. It requires no authentication and responds to a single GET request, making it ideal for a first fetch() exercise. The API also supports a plain-text endpoint that returns just the image URL for even simpler integration.

Beginner Tip

Hit https://random-d.uk/api/v2/random to get a JSON response with a "url" field — assign that value directly to an img src to display the duck photo.

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://random-d.uk/api/v2/random
Result
HTTP 200 · application/json · 76 bytes · compressed
Response time
260 ms (median of 3) · fastest 253 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
message string Powered by random-d.uk
url string (url) http://random-d.uk/api/494.JPG

Captured Response

Captured from a real request to https://random-d.uk/api/v2/random on 2026-08-10. Long arrays and nested objects are truncated to keep the shape readable.

JSON Response · Captured
{
  "message": "Powered by random-d.uk",
  "url": "http://random-d.uk/api/494.JPG"
}

Field Reference

url Direct URL to the duck image — suitable for use as an img src.
message A fun duck-related message, typically "quack".

Implementation Example

Calls a real endpoint of this API. Replace any placeholder credentials with your own key.

Request
const url = "https://random-d.uk/api/v2/random";
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.

HTTP 404 Requesting a path that does not exist text/html

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.

Unexpected illustration instead of photo The collection mixes real duck photos and cartoon illustrations without a way to filter
Use the ?type=jpg parameter to request only photographic images
Response is a plain string, not JSON Hitting the /quack endpoint instead of /v2/random returns just the URL as a plain string
Use /api/v2/random for a JSON response, or treat the /quack response directly as a URL string
fetch() fails silently Not checking HTTP response status before calling .json()
Add: if (!response.ok) throw new Error(response.status) before parsing the response body

Measured Score Breakdown

Live HTTP request to the API endpoint

Speed 15/30
Consistency 20/20
Security 20/20
Browser access 0/15
Transparency 8/15
Endpoint Response Time 260ms

Fully tested on Aug 10, 2026

Technical Specifications

Auth No Auth
HTTPS REQUIRED
CORS NO
Category Animals
Difficulty Beginner
Endpoint last called: 2026-08-10

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