Gutendex

aid: gutendex
name: Gutendex
description: Gutendex is a simple, self-hosted JSON-based web API for serving book catalog information from Project Gutenberg,
  providing structured metadata for over 70,000 free ebooks including titles, authors, subjects, bookshelves, languages, copyright
  status, media types, downloadable formats, and download counts. The hosted instance at gutendex.com runs the open-source
  Django project by Gareth B. Johnson under the MIT license.
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: open
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: true
  label: Free · Open access
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://gutendex.com/static/images/gutendex.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/gutendex/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-05-28'
modified: '2026-05-29'
specificationVersion: '0.20'
type: Index
access: 3rd-Party
x-type: opensource
x-category: Books
x-source: public-apis/public-apis
x-tier: 3
x-tier-reason: bulk-registered-from-public-apis
tags:
- Books
- Catalog
- Ebooks
- Library
- Literature
- Metadata
- Open Source
- Project Gutenberg
- Public APIs
- Public Domain
apis:
- aid: gutendex:gutendex-books-api
  name: Gutendex Books API
  description: Query and retrieve metadata for Project Gutenberg ebooks.
  humanURL: https://gutendex.com
  baseURL: https://gutendex.com
  tags:
  - Books
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/gutendex-books-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://gutendex.com
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/gutendex-book-schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/gutendex-book-list-schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/gutendex-person-schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/gutendex-format-schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/gutendex-error-schema.json
  - type: JSONLD
    url: json-ld/gutendex-context.jsonld
common:
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/gutendex-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/gutendex-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://gutendex.com
- type: Documentation
  url: https://gutendex.com
- type: OpenAPI
  url: openapi/gutendex-api-openapi.yml
- type: JSONSchema
  url: json-schema/gutendex-book-schema.json
- type: JSONLD
  url: json-ld/gutendex-context.jsonld
- type: GitHubRepository
  url: https://github.com/garethbjohnson/gutendex
- type: PublicAPIsListing
  url: https://github.com/public-apis/public-apis
- type: Plans
  url: plans/gutendex-plans-pricing.yml
- type: Pricing
  url: plans/gutendex-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/gutendex-rate-limits.yml
- type: SpectralRules
  url: rules/gutendex-rules.yml
- type: Vocabulary
  url: vocabulary/gutendex-vocabulary.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: https://gutendex.com
  description: No authentication required; the hosted instance is publicly accessible.
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://github.com/garethbjohnson/gutendex/wiki/Installation-Guide
- type: Tools
  title: Project Gutenberg MCP Server (bobbyhouse)
  url: https://github.com/bobbyhouse/project-gutenberg-mcp
- type: Tools
  title: Project Gutenberg MCP Server (vellankis-space)
  url: https://github.com/vellankis-space/project-gutenberg-mcp-server
- type: Tools
  title: Gutenberg MCP Server (nasimcoderex)
  url: https://github.com/nasimcoderex/gutenberg-mcp-server
- type: Features
  data:
  - name: Free Public API
    description: No API key, no signup, no rate limit documented; gutendex.com is openly available.
  - name: 70,000+ Ebook Catalog
    description: Mirrors the full Project Gutenberg catalog of free public-domain ebooks.
  - name: Rich Filtering
    description: Filter by author birth/death year, copyright status, language, MIME type, IDs, search keywords, and topic.
  - name: Multiple Sort Orders
    description: Sort results by popularity (default), ascending ID, or descending ID.
  - name: Multi-format Downloads
    description: Each book exposes a Format object mapping MIME types (HTML, EPUB, MOBI, plain text, JPEG) to direct download
      URLs.
  - name: Bookshelves and Subjects
    description: Books are tagged with Library of Congress subject headings and curated Project Gutenberg bookshelves.
  - name: Multi-language Support
    description: Books are indexed by two-character ISO language codes; filter by multiple languages at once.
  - name: Self-Hostable
    description: MIT-licensed Django app that operators can run on their own infrastructure with nightly Project Gutenberg
      catalog sync.
- type: UseCases
  data:
  - name: Literature Analytics
    description: Power large-scale analysis of public-domain literature by ingesting the structured Project Gutenberg catalog.
  - name: Educational Apps
    description: Build classroom or self-study apps that surface public-domain texts by subject, author, or reading level.
  - name: Reading Recommendation Engines
    description: Use the download_count and bookshelf data to recommend popular classics or themed reading lists.
  - name: Digital Library Backends
    description: Power library catalog interfaces and ebook reader apps with a clean JSON facade over Project Gutenberg's
      XML archives.
  - name: Natural Language Processing Datasets
    description: Use the catalog to discover bulk text downloads for training language models on public-domain corpora.
  - name: Citation and Reference Tools
    description: Power author/title lookup widgets in citation managers and academic writing tools.
- type: Integrations
  data:
  - name: Project Gutenberg
    description: Upstream source. Gutendex nightly-ingests the official Project Gutenberg XML catalog and republishes it as
      JSON.
  - name: Django REST Framework
    description: Built on Django + Django REST Framework. Operators can extend the API with additional viewsets.
  - name: Model Context Protocol
    description: Community-maintained MCP servers expose Project Gutenberg / Gutendex to LLM agents (bobbyhouse, vellankis-space,
      nasimcoderex).
  - name: PostgreSQL / SQLite
    description: Default Django storage backends used by self-hosted instances for catalog persistence.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
  url: https://apievangelist.com