Waifu.im API

Beginner's Pick Anime / No Auth Required Beginner HTTPS CORS
Free to Use
48 D
Measured Score 0 50 100 Speed 4/30 Consistency 1/20 Security 20/20 Browser access 15/15 Transparency 8/15 TESTED 2026-08-10

Overview

Waifu.im hosts a curated archive of over 4,000 anime-style character images organized by tags like maid, uniform, wink, or ero. No API key is required to fetch images, making it one of the simplest anime image APIs to use. It is popular for Discord bots and web projects that need tagged anime images on demand.

Beginner Tip

Use GET https://api.waifu.im/search/?included_tags=maid to fetch random images by tag. The is_nsfw parameter defaults to false, so all results are safe for work unless you explicitly set it to true.

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://api.waifu.im/tags/
Result
HTTP 200 · application/json · 3,526 bytes · compressed
Response time
689 ms (median of 3) · fastest 272 ms
Transport
TLSv1.3 · TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 · certificate issued by Google Trust Services
Browser CORS
Allowed — Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
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
items array [1 item]
pageNumber integer 1
totalPages integer 1
totalCount integer 20
maxPageSize integer -1
defaultPageSize integer 30
hasPreviousPage boolean false
hasNextPage boolean false

Captured Response

Captured from a real request to https://api.waifu.im/tags/ on 2026-08-10. Long arrays and nested objects are truncated to keep the shape readable.

JSON Response · Captured
{
  "items": [
    {
      "id": 12,
      "name": "Waifu",
      "slug": "waifu",
      "description": "A female anime/manga character.",
      "reviewStatus": "Accepted",
      "creatorId": null,
      "imageCount": 4276
    }
  ],
  "pageNumber": 1,
  "totalPages": 1,
  "totalCount": 20,
  "maxPageSize": -1,
  "defaultPageSize": 30,
  "hasPreviousPage": false,
  "hasNextPage": false
}

Implementation Example

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

Request
const url = "https://waifu.im/docs";
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 application/problem+json
{
  "type": "https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc9110#section-15.5.5",
  "title": "Not Found",
  "status": 404,
  "detail": "The requested endpoint was not found.",
  "instance": "/tags/apisscore-nonexistent-path",
  "traceId": "00-82c89be9eab5c861b877aca6bc8d4106-7376826593340ad4-00"
}

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.

400 Bad Request Invalid or nonexistent tag name in included_tags parameter.
Fetch the valid tag list first from GET https://api.waifu.im/tags/ and use only those exact names.
404 Not Found No images match the combination of included and excluded tags.
Try fewer tag filters or remove excluded_tags to broaden the search.
CORS blocked in browser Browser restricts cross-origin requests in some configurations.
Waifu.im supports CORS for browser use; verify you are requesting https:// not http://.

Measured Score Breakdown

Live HTTP request to the API endpoint

Speed 4/30
Consistency 1/20
Security 20/20
Browser access 15/15
Transparency 8/15
Endpoint Response Time 689ms

Fully tested on Aug 10, 2026

Technical Specifications

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

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