500px

500px is an online photography community and stock-licensing platform where millions of photographers from over 195 countries showcase, discover, and license high-quality images. Founded in Toronto in 2009 and acquired by Visual China Group (VCG) in 2018, 500px combines a social network for photographers with a Licensing marketplace and Quest photo contests. 500px historically operated a public REST API (api.500px.com/v1) that exposed photo feeds, photo and comment data, user profiles, galleries, and uploads using OAuth 1.0a and Consumer Key authentication; that public API program was discontinued on June 15, 2018, and the platform is now community- and web-first. This profile documents the retired API surface, the identity of the company, and its remaining developer-relevant properties.

500px publishes 1 API on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Company, Photography, Stock Photos, Image Licensing, and Community.

500px’s developer surface includes documentation, engineering blog, support, signup flow, pricing, authentication, and 12 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub
28.9/100 emerging Agent 14/100 human only Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-20 · rubric v0.4
1 APIs 0 Features
CompanyPhotographyStock PhotosImage LicensingCommunitySocial NetworkMediaContent

API Rating

API Evangelist API Evangelist Rating How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-20 · rubric v0.4
Composite quality — 28.9/100 · emerging
Contract Quality 0.0 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 7.0 / 20
Commercial Clarity 8.9 / 20
Operational Transparency 3.8 / 13
Governance 0.0 / 12
Discoverability 9.3 / 10
Agent readiness — 14/100 · human only
Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 0 / 15
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 4 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/500px: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs

500px Legacy API (v1)

500px v1 REST API providing programmatic access to photo feature streams, photo information and comments, user profiles, galleries, and uploads. Responses are JSON; authenticati...

Resources

Get Started 3

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

DeveloperPortal
DeveloperPortal
 SignUp
SignUp
 Login
Login

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation
Documentation

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

WellKnown
WellKnown

Design & Contract 2

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Lifecycle
Lifecycle
 Conventions
Conventions

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization
GitHubOrganization

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

Authentication
Authentication
 DomainSecurity
DomainSecurity

Operate 3

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Support
Support
 StatusPage
StatusPage
 Deprecation
Deprecation

Commercial 3

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Pricing
Pricing
 TermsOfService
TermsOfService
 PrivacyPolicy
PrivacyPolicy

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website
Website
 Blog
Blog

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑ 
aid: 500px
name: 500px
description: 500px is an online photography community and stock-licensing platform where millions of photographers from over
  195 countries showcase, discover, and license high-quality images. Founded in Toronto in 2009 and acquired by Visual China
  Group (VCG) in 2018, 500px combines a social network for photographers with a Licensing marketplace and Quest photo contests.
  500px historically operated a public REST API (api.500px.com/v1) that exposed photo feeds, photo and comment data, user
  profiles, galleries, and uploads using OAuth 1.0a and Consumer Key authentication; that public API program was discontinued
  on June 15, 2018, and the platform is now community- and web-first. This profile documents the retired API surface, the
  identity of the company, and its remaining developer-relevant properties.
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/500px/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
x-type: company
x-source: a16z-portfolio
x-tier: stub
x-tier-reason: portfolio-lead
image: https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/1775300?v=4
specificationVersion: '0.20'
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-17'
tags:
- Company
- Photography
- Stock Photos
- Image Licensing
- Community
- Social Network
- Media
- Content
apis:
- name: 500px Legacy API (v1)
  description: 500px v1 REST API providing programmatic access to photo feature streams, photo information and comments, user
    profiles, galleries, and uploads. Responses are JSON; authentication uses OAuth 1.0a for user-scoped requests and a Consumer
    Key for public read-only requests. This public API program was discontinued on 2018-06-15 and is retained here as historical
    documentation.
  humanURL: https://github.com/500px/legacy-api-documentation
  baseURL: https://api.500px.com/v1
  tags:
  - Photos
  - Photography
  - Users
  - Galleries
  - Comments
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://github.com/500px/legacy-api-documentation
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://github.com/500px/legacy-api-documentation/tree/master/endpoints
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/500px-authentication.yml
  - type: Deprecation
    url: https://support.500px.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002435653-API
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
  email: info@apis.io
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://500px.com
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://github.com/500px/legacy-api-documentation
- type: Documentation
  url: https://github.com/500px/legacy-api-documentation
- type: Blog
  url: https://iso.500px.com
- type: Support
  url: https://support.500px.com
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/500px
- type: SignUp
  url: https://500px.com/signup
- type: Login
  url: https://500px.com/login
- type: Pricing
  url: https://500px.com/upgrade
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://500px.com/terms
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://500px.com/privacy
- type: StatusPage
  url: https://status.500px.com
- type: Deprecation
  url: https://support.500px.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002435653-API
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/500px-authentication.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/500px-lifecycle.yml
- type: Conventions
  url: conventions/500px-conventions.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/500px-domain-security.yml
- type: WellKnown
  url: well-known/500px-well-known.yml
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-07-19'
  status: backfilled
  pass: local-v1
  note: backfilled from .gitignore signal + verified work evidence