A previous version of this article was published 4 years ago.
If we want to build a great recipe API server(an idea behind starting the ChickenKyiv project) — we should learn the best cases from major competitors in this field. So I listed here APIs that I personally adore. It’s really hard to find some other cool example. If you know other API providers — don’t hesitate to comment below!
Edamam
Description
Edamam has few open APIs — Nutrition Analysis, Food Database Lookup, Food Entity Extraction, Recipe Licensing, Recipe Search, Meal Recommendation Engine
Plans
Free, Startup(free with rules), Enterprise(from $100)
My 2 cents
I like it. One of my favorite. Clear documentation, not a lot of custom/crazy things. Search API is cool and working fast.
Documentation
https://developer.edamam.com/recipe-search-api-v2-changelog
RecipePuppy
Description
Recipe Puppy is perfect for using at your development project. So if you have simple code on Github and want to send queries to some server — pick it.
Plans
Free
My 2 cents
Simple. But limited, for sure. So you wouldn’t find any cool features from other APIs listed here, but if this is not bothering you — it’s a good place to start. And i like pugs :)
Documentation
http://www.recipepuppy.com/about/api/
ReciPal
Description
This is another big player. They have a lot of data and provide it in an easy way. I personally like “scale recipe” feature, because this is an important feature of our product too, and i can see how they did it. They also care about sub-recipes.
Plans
Not clear. I think it’s upon request.
My 2 cents
Awesome documentation. I assume they also have a mock server here.
Documentation
https://www.recipal.com/api-docs#intro
BigOven
Description
BigOven is industry standard. This is not the first version of their API, so I’m pretty sure they improve it a lot. But they keep a lot of old-functions, so old version works too. It’s not cool to see a lot of deprecated methods, maybe they will update it soon. They have separated endpoints for Grocery Lists, Glossary, Reviews.
Plans
From $100
My 2 cents
I like it too. Not sure if I’ll be ready to pay their prices. Because can Yummly provides more.
Documentation
http://api2.bigoven.com/swagger/ui/index#/
Yummly
Description
They, not just store recipes, they really innovate and disrupt this industry. You can google their blog articles, related to how they classify “recipe stuff” using Machine learning — very inspiring. They also support hackathons, so if you have a small open project — you can contact them and receive a dev API key.
Plans
from $500
My 2 cents
If you have a small food startup, you wouldn’t be able to use Yummly as a service provider. But when you’ll be ready — don’t hesitate to switch. it’s really to compare their data with another company. Documentation is cool, for sure :)
Documentation
https://developer.yummly.com/documentation.html
Spoonacular
Description
They are listed at Kong(prev Mashape) so they are reliable too. They have endpoints for meal planning, they can convert ingredients into grocery products and have an interesting structure for Nutrition data. Also, provide a hackathon access.
Plans
0–$1000
My 2 cents
It’s like a perfect tool that stands in between. Has not the only big database for recipes but also has tools for meal planning.
Documentation
https://rapidapi.com/spoonacular/api/recipe-food-nutrition https://blog.api.rakuten.net/api-tutorial-spoonacular-api-for-food-and-recipes/
Eaternity
Description
Awesome breakdown of ingredient properties. I personally ‘steal’ a lot of their ideas, related to how they structure their GitHub repositories. A lot of information related to CO2 emissions(which is unique)
Plans
EUR 99
My 2 cents
Kickass because using Apiary as documentation provider(backed by Oracle and looks better than Swagger(less nerdy)). Eaternity website have a cool vibe :)
Documentation
https://eaternity.docs.apiary.io/#reference/recipe-resources
WTFDIET
Description
Simple recipe API. Not a lot of custom things. But can be used as inspiration for beginners. And I like this name.
Plans
not available data.
Documentation
https://antoinewattier.docs.apiary.io/#reference/recipes/recipes-collection/retrieve-a-recipe
This is my collection for the best APIs related to recipes. You can also check quora`s discussion. link below.
https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-free-APIs-for-food-recipes
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