Free avatar placeholder API — deterministic initials avatars, no signup

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Avatar placeholder services have quietly become a graveyard. Checked live, September 2026:

Host	Status today
`api.adorable.io`	❌ dead — every avatar URL 301-redirects to an unrelated web-design agency that now owns the domain
`avatars.dicebear.com` (old host)	❌ HTTP `410 Gone` — every pre-2023 DiceBear tutorial URL is dead (the API moved to `api.dicebear.com` and now needs a style + version in the path)
`ui-avatars.com`	✅ up
`i.pravatar.cc`	✅ up
`robohash.org`	✅ up

We check the live ones hourly — current state on the status page, e.g. /status/ui-avatars.

Mockbird serves deterministic initials avatars from the same base URL as its placeholder images and your mock REST API. No signup, no key, works right now:

<img src="https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/demo/avatar?name=John+Doe&rounded=true">

Same name → same colors, same initials, forever. Pure SVG rendered at the edge — no image processing, no third-party calls, cacheable for a day.

Try it

name size bg color length rounded

Switching from ui-avatars.com? It's a host swap

The params are ui-avatars.com-compatible — name, size, background, color, rounded, length, uppercase=false all work the same way:

# before
https://ui-avatars.com/api/?name=John+Doe&size=128&background=0D8ABC&color=fff&rounded=true

# after — same params, one URL swap
https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/demo/avatar?name=John+Doe&size=128&background=0D8ABC&color=fff&rounded=true

Differences to know about: Mockbird serves SVG by default and honors format=png (or a /avatar/128.png path suffix) for raster output with identical layout and colors, background=random maps to our deterministic palette pick (same name keeps the same color across page loads, which is usually what you actually wanted), and font/bold tuning params are ignored.

Pravatar-style ids work too: /avatar/150?u=a042581f4e29026704d — the u value picks the colors deterministically, exactly like their "unique id always gets the same image" behavior (you get initials instead of a stock photo).

Parameter reference

Param	Meaning
`name`	Initials source: first letter of the first two words (`John Doe` → JD); single word → its first letters. ≤80 chars.
`size` or path (`/avatar/64`)	Square size in px, 1–1000. Default 128.
`background` / `bg`	Hex without `#` (3 or 6 digits), or `random` for the deterministic palette.
`color` / `fg`	Text color hex. Auto-contrast picked if omitted.
`rounded` / `round`	`true` or `1` → circle. Default square.
`length`	Number of initials, 1–3. Default 2.
`uppercase=false`	Keep the original case.
`seed` / `u`	Overrides which palette color is picked (identity stays stable even if the display name changes).
`style`	`identicon` (GitHub-style 5×5 mirrored grid) or `shapes` (abstract geometric) instead of initials — deterministic per seed, composes with size/rounded/colors. Full story: free identicon API.
`grayscale` / `blur=1–10`	picsum-style effects — desaturate and/or blur the avatar (bare `?blur` = 5). Work on SVG and PNG output alike, deterministic. Handy for "inactive user" or skeleton states.

Avatars inside your mock data

This is the part no standalone avatar service does: Mockbird is a mock REST API, so seeded avatar fields point at this endpoint automatically. One curl gives you a users API where every record ships a working avatar URL:

curl -X POST https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/api/projects \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"name":"my-app","preset":"saas"}'
# → GET /m/<id>/users returns records with "avatar": ".../m/<id>/avatar?name=Mia+Chen&rounded=true"

Your frontend renders a believable user list — names, emails, and avatars that match — before the real backend exists.

When the other services are the better pick

Service	Pick it when…
UI Avatars	you want fine font control (bold, font-size). It's a good service — we made our params compatible on purpose (and we serve PNG too: `/avatar/128.png`).
Pravatar	you want photos of real people (CC0). Fixed pool of exactly 70 photos (`?img=71` is a 404), so distinct users share faces past that.
DiceBear	you want illustrated art styles (pixel art, bots, adventurers…). Rich API — just use the current `api.dicebear.com` host, not old tutorial URLs.
RoboHash	you want fun robots/monsters per string.
Mockbird	you want deterministic initials avatars plus the mock API around them: users CRUD, auth, filters, GraphQL, webhooks — one base URL, no signup.

FAQ

Do I need to create anything? No — /m/demo/avatar?name=… works bare. Create your own project (one curl, no signup) for your own namespace and quota.

Is the SVG safe to embed? Yes — text is XML-escaped, and the response carries X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff plus a restrictive Content-Security-Policy. It behaves like a PNG in an <img> tag.

Rate limits? Avatars share the project's daily request quota (10,000/day per project; the shared demo gets 50,000). Responses cache for 24h, so real pages hit the quota far less than you'd think.

Full reference in the docs. More guides: placeholder image API · fake user API · picsum alternative · free mock API tools compared. Create your API →