📡 We check deckofcardsapi.com (and 75+ other public dev APIs) with a plain GET every 30 minutes — see the live status page. As of publishing it's up and answering normally. This guide is about its design traps, not availability.

Deck of Cards API alternative — decks that never expire, hands you can pin

The Deck of Cards API is one of the friendliest teaching APIs on the internet: new/shuffle a deck, draw cards with hosted PNG/SVG images, move them into named piles — the classic backend for bootcamp blackjack, React memory games, and "build a card game" exercises. Keyless, CORS-open, been around for years. If you're doing the exercise as written, use it and enjoy it.

Three traps show up when the exercise becomes a project (all checked live on September 18, 2026):

Decks expire. The site says it plainly: after two weeks with no actions, "we throw it away". Any deck_id saved in localStorage, a database, a test fixture, or the tutorial you're following eventually answers 404 {"success": false, "error": "Deck ID does not exist."}. Every "resume your game" feature built on a stored deck_id is on a two-week timer.
An overdraw is HTTP 200, success: false — and a partial cards array anyway. We drew 60 from a deck holding 49: the response was status 200 with "success": false, an error string, and all remaining cards in cards. Code that checks res.ok misses the failure; code that checks data.cards.length misses it too. You must check the success flag specifically — the one thing tutorials skip.
Shuffled draws are unrepeatable. That's the point of a real deck — and the ruin of a test suite. You can't assert "the player is dealt the ace of spades" against a real shuffle, so card-game UI tests either mock the fetch layer or go flaky.

The fix that keeps your rendering code: host the same 52 cards — same field names (code, value, suit, image, the nested images.png/svg object, verbatim) — on a free mock API you control. Decks never expire, hands are pinnable, draws can be random or deterministic, and one param reproduces their exact success/cards/remaining envelope. No signup, no key.

1. Migrate the real deck in two curls

# 1. draw all 52 cards from their API once, wrap as db.json
curl "https://deckofcardsapi.com/api/deck/new/draw/?count=52" \
  | python3 -c "import sys,json; cards=json.load(sys.stdin)['cards']; print(json.dumps({'cards':[dict(id=i+1,**c) for i,c in enumerate(cards)]}))" \
  > db.json

# 2. import — the response includes your project id + admin key
curl -X POST "https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/api/projects/import?name=cards" \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' --data-binary @db.json

That hosted all 52 cards for us verbatim: code "AS", value "ACE", suit "SPADES", the image URL and the nested images {png, svg} object untouched, still pointing at their hosted card art (hotlinking it for a dev project is how every tutorial uses it anyway). Your card component renders it unchanged.

2. The translation table

Deck of Cards API	Your Mockbird project
`/deck/<id>/draw/?count=5` (random)	`/cards?sortBy=random&limit=5` — 3 consecutive draws gave us 3 different first cards
draw a specific card — not possible	`/cards?code=AS` → the ace of spades. Deal any exact hand a test needs
`remaining` in the response	`X-Total-Count` header on every list (or `$total` in the envelope, §4)
draw removes the card from the deck	`DELETE /cards/:id` after drawing — count went 52 → 51 for us, and the drawn card's GET is a real 404 (§3)
`new/shuffle` a fresh deck	restore the `fulldeck` snapshot — back to 52 instantly (§3)
piles (`/pile/<name>/add`)	a field, not a sub-API: `PATCH {"pile":"player1"}`, then `?pile=player1` lists the hand
deck expires after two weeks idle	never expires
fixed 52 (+2 jokers) cards	POST your own: wilds, tarot, Uno, a 5th suit — it persists

3. A whole card game in four verbs

# save the fresh deck once (admin key from your import response)
curl -X POST "https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/api/projects/PROJECT_ID/snapshots" \
  -H 'x-admin-key: KEY' -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{"name":"fulldeck"}'

# DRAW = pick random, then delete it from the deck
curl "https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/PROJECT_ID/cards?sortBy=random&limit=1"
curl -X DELETE "https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/PROJECT_ID/cards/28"
# → X-Total-Count on the next list is 51; GET /cards/28 is now a real 404

# DEAL to a hand = tag the card with a pile field
curl -X PATCH "https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/PROJECT_ID/cards/5" \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{"pile":"player1"}'
curl "https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/PROJECT_ID/cards?pile=player1"   # player1's hand

# RESHUFFLE = restore the snapshot — 52 cards again
curl -X POST "https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/api/projects/PROJECT_ID/snapshots/fulldeck/restore" \
  -H 'x-admin-key: KEY'

Every step above ran against a live project before publishing, in that order, with those results. And because the deck is just records, your tests can skip randomness entirely: restore fulldeck in beforeEach, deal exact cards by ?code=, assert the blackjack you constructed. Deterministic hands are the feature a real deck can never give you — more on that pattern in deterministic test data.

4. Want their exact response shape? One param

Tutorial code reads data.cards and data.remaining. Reproduce it:

curl "https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/PROJECT_ID/cards?mock_envelope=%7B%22success%22%3A%20true%2C%20%22deck_id%22%3A%20%22mockdeck%22%2C%20%22cards%22%3A%20%22%24data%22%2C%20%22remaining%22%3A%20%22%24total%22%7D&sortBy=random&limit=2"
# → {"success":true,"deck_id":"mockdeck","cards":[…2 cards…],"remaining":52}

A miss keeps cards an array ([], remaining: 0) — and asking for more cards than exist (?limit=60 on 52 records) simply returns all 52 with HTTP 200, no success:false half-failure to special-case. Set the envelope once as the project default (PUT /api/projects/:id/settings {"envelope":…}) and every GET answers in their shape. Details in docs → envelope.

5. Rehearse the bad days

# two 502s, then success — exercise your retry logic
curl "https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/PROJECT_ID/cards?mock_seq=502,502,200&mock_seq_key=deckdrill"

# 2-second deal for your card-flip loading state
curl "https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/PROJECT_ID/cards?mock_delay=2000"

More recipes in testing loading & error states.

Where the Deck of Cards API still wins

Credit where due. The card art is theirs and it's great — hosted PNG and SVG for every card, plus backs and jokers. Server-side deck state is genuinely convenient when you want shared randomness with zero logic on your side: one URL shuffles, another draws, piles move cards between hands, and multiple players hitting the same deck_id see one consistent deck. Our version makes you do the draw-then-DELETE step, and simultaneous draws from two clients could race (two players could both "draw" the same card before either deletes it — fine for single-player exercises and tests, not a casino). The honest split: quick shared-deck demos with real shuffle mechanics → deckofcardsapi.com. Card data that never expires, exact hands for tests, your own cards, their envelope shape, and failure drills → your import.

Start now

The two-curl block in section 1, or zero setup at all:

curl https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/demo/products?limit=3

Facts checked live on September 18, 2026: deckofcardsapi.com's homepage states decks idle for two weeks are thrown away; /api/deck/NOTADECK/draw/ answers 404 {"success": false, "error": "Deck ID does not exist."}; drawing 60 from a deck holding 49 answered HTTP 200 with "success": false, "remaining": 0, an error string, and all 49 remaining cards in cards; /deck/new/draw/?count=52 returns all 52 cards with nested images.png/svg. Every Mockbird command on this page was run against a live project before publishing (random draws distinct 3-of-3, delete → X-Total-Count: 51 → restore → 52, pile filter, envelope hit and miss, mock_seq 502/502/200), and the scratch project was deleted after.

Full API reference in the docs. More guides: Rick and Morty API alternative · PokéAPI alternative · Deterministic test data · Mock API for React · Host a JSON file as an API. Create your API →

⚡ Skip the terminal: this link opens the dashboard's import panel — paste the db.json from section 1 and you're done. No signup.