httpbin
HTTP request & response testing service. Echo endpoints for every method, status code simulation, header inspection, delay simulation — the standard tool for debugging HTTP clients.
🟢 Online · 923 ms
71.67%
Unlimited (fair use), no key, no credit card
No key required
Free alternatives (live ranking)
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Compare httpbin with…
- httpbin vs Free Dictionary API — Unlimited (fair use), no key, no credit card
- httpbin vs ipify — Unlimited, no key, no credit card
- httpbin vs DiceBear Avatars — Unlimited (fair use), no key, no credit card
Paid alternatives
- Pipedream RequestBin — free tier, paid from $19/mo
Frequently Asked Questions
Does httpbin require an API key?
No, httpbin is freely accessible without registration or an API key.
What is httpbin's free tier?
Unlimited (fair use), no key, no credit card
Is httpbin currently online?
We check httpbin every hour. The current status is shown at the top of this page. You can also see the 30-day uptime history in the chart above.
Implementation notes
When to use httpbin
httpbin is the standard tool for testing HTTP client behavior — what did my client actually send, how does it handle a 503, what happens on a 10-second delay, does my retry logic work. Endpoints echo back your request's headers, body, and query params; simulate any status code (`/status/503`); delay responses (`/delay/5`); test redirects, gzip, auth challenges, and cookies. Use it when writing HTTP client libraries, debugging middleware, testing timeout/retry logic, or teaching how HTTP works.
Common pitfalls
- The public httpbin.org instance runs on limited infrastructure and gets hammered by the entire internet's CI pipelines. Response times are volatile (200ms to 3s+) and occasional 503s are normal. For CI test suites, self-host the Docker image (`docker run -p 80:80 kennethreitz/httpbin`) instead of depending on the public instance.
- The `/delay/{n}` endpoint caps at 10 seconds. Requests asking for longer delays return after 10s anyway, silently. Testing 30-second timeout behavior requires a self-hosted instance or a different tool.
- Do not send real secrets to httpbin endpoints — `/headers` and `/anything` echo everything back, and you're transmitting to a third-party server you don't control. Use placeholder tokens in test payloads.
Quick start (bash)
curl "https://httpbin.org/anything" -X POST -d '{"test": true}' -H "Content-Type: application/json"From our monitoring
In our monitoring, httpbin.org is the flakiest API in the dev-tools category — not because it's badly built but because the free public instance absorbs enormous traffic. We see periodic slowdowns (2s+ responses) during US business hours. This is exactly why our ranking rewards it less than its ubiquity suggests: for anything beyond ad-hoc manual testing, self-host it.
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