REST Countries vs USGS Earthquake Catalog
Category: Public-data · Updated August 2026
Both REST Countries (Unlimited, no key, no credit card) and USGS Earthquake Catalog (Unlimited, no key, no credit card) offer comparable free tiers. Both show similar reliability — REST Countries at 100% uptime and USGS Earthquake Catalog at 100% uptime over 30 days. For most use cases either will work; your choice can come down to feature depth or ecosystem preference.
Side-by-side comparison
REST Countries
Detailed data on all 250 countries including names, capitals, flags, currencies, languages, calling codes, and regional groupings. No key required and widely used in geography and education apps.
| Status | 🟢 Online |
| 30-day uptime | 100% |
| Response time | 159 ms |
| Free tier | Unlimited, no key, no credit card |
| Auth | No key required |
| Tier score | 1.0 — no friction |
USGS Earthquake Catalog
Official United States Geological Survey feed of global seismic events as GeoJSON, updated within minutes of detection, with magnitude, depth, and precise coordinates. Government-funded, so there is no monetisation pressure on the free tier.
| Status | 🟢 Online |
| 30-day uptime | 100% |
| Response time | 22 ms |
| Free tier | Unlimited, no key, no credit card |
| Auth | No key required |
| Tier score | 1.0 — no friction |
Which to choose?
- Pick REST Countries if…you want zero friction — no account, no key, just call the endpoint. Also good if public-data data without signup is a hard requirement.
- Pick USGS Earthquake Catalog if…you want zero friction — no account, no key, just call the endpoint. Also good if public-data data without signup is a hard requirement.
- Use both if…one goes down — they serve the same public-data use case from different data sources, so you can implement a quick fallback.
Or use these alternatives
Other top-ranked Public-data APIs you might consider:
- Zippopotam.us — 🟢 Online · Unlimited, no key, no credit card
- Sunrise Sunset API — 🟢 Online · Unlimited, no key, no credit card
Frequently Asked Questions
Is REST Countries or USGS Earthquake Catalog more reliable?
Both REST Countries and USGS Earthquake Catalog show identical 30-day uptime (100%) in our monitoring. Either is a safe choice from a reliability standpoint.
Which one has a more generous free tier — REST Countries or USGS Earthquake Catalog?
Both have comparable free tiers. REST Countries offers Unlimited, no key, no credit card and USGS Earthquake Catalog offers Unlimited, no key, no credit card. The right choice depends on your specific call volume and auth preferences.
Can I use REST Countries and USGS Earthquake Catalog together?
Absolutely — neither requires an API key, so you can call both with no setup. A round-robin or primary/fallback pattern is trivial to implement, giving you redundancy at zero cost.
What's the cheapest paid alternative if both REST Countries and USGS Earthquake Catalog fail?
Paid alternatives vary by category. For Public-data APIs, most commercial providers start at $10–$50/month for reasonable call volumes. See the detail pages for REST Countries and USGS Earthquake Catalog for their respective recommended paid upgrades.
See full profiles: REST Countries · USGS Earthquake Catalog · All Public-data APIs