The classic free mock, fake-data and placeholder-image services that a decade of tutorials depend on — checked with a plain GET every 30 minutes, exactly what a tutorial curl or an <img> tag experiences. 6 of 17 are failing right now.
Last checked 2026-07-29T16:30:41Z · re-checked every 30 min · JSON · what each of these is good for →
| Service | Now | OK 24h | OK 7d | Mockbird |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| JSONPlaceholder jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1 Fixed dataset; writes are faked (POST answers 201 but nothing persists). |
UP 200 · 15 ms | 100% | 100% | free alternative → |
| ReqRes (reqres.in) reqres.in/api/users?page=1 Requires an x-api-key header since 2025 — the decade of keyless tutorial curls now gets 401. |
HTTP 401 | 0% | 0% | free alternative → |
| FakeStoreAPI fakestoreapi.com/products/1 Reads work; writes are faked (POST returns an id whose GET comes back empty). |
UP 200 · 196 ms | 100% | 100% | free alternative → |
| DummyJSON dummyjson.com/products/1 Reads work; writes are simulated (response-only, nothing persists). |
UP 200 · 35 ms | 100% | 100% | free alternative → |
| randomuser.me randomuser.me/api/?results=1 Generator only: read-only (writes 404), no single-user URL, field filters ignored. Its sibling uinames.com is already dead. |
UP 200 · 745 ms | 100% | 100% | free alternative → |
| Service | Now | OK 24h | OK 7d | Mockbird |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| httpbin.org httpbin.org/get Repeated multi-hour 503/timeout outages in 2026. |
UP 200 · 1047 ms | 67.3% | 67.3% | free alternative → |
| Postman Echo postman-echo.com/get |
UP 200 · 430 ms | 100% | 100% | free alternative → |
| Mocky (run.mocky.io) run.mocky.io/v3/health Officially discontinued — serves a self-signed certificate; every saved mock URL is dead. |
HTTP 526 | 0% | 0% | free alternative → |
| Service | Now | OK 24h | OK 7d | Mockbird |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| myjson.com myjson.com/ Gone since 2020 — connections hang; every hosted-JSON URL in old tutorials and Roku feeds is dead. |
DOWN timeout after 8000ms | 0% | 0% | free alternative → |
| Service | Now | OK 24h | OK 7d | Mockbird |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| via.placeholder.com via.placeholder.com/150 Connections hang/time out — tutorial <img> tags stall silently. |
HTTP 525 | 0% | 0% | free alternative → |
| placehold.it placehold.it/150 Behind a bot challenge — plain GETs and <img> loads get 403. |
UP 200 · 968 ms | 95.9% | 95.9% | free alternative → |
| placekitten.com placekitten.com/200/300 Origin down (52x errors) since 2025. RIP the kittens. |
HTTP 521 | 0% | 0% | free alternative → |
| placeimg.com placeimg.com/240/180/any Shut down in 2022; domain no longer resolves to a working service. |
HTTP 530 | 0% | 0% | free alternative → |
| placehold.co placehold.co/150 |
UP 200 · 501 ms | 100% | 100% | free alternative → |
| dummyimage.com dummyimage.com/300 |
UP 200 · 534 ms | 100% | 100% | free alternative → |
| Lorem Picsum (picsum.photos) picsum.photos/200 |
UP 200 · 757 ms | 100% | 100% | free alternative → |
| LoremFlickr loremflickr.com/320/240 |
UP 200 · 1328 ms | 98% | 98% | free alternative → |
OK = the service answered a plain, keyless GET with HTTP 2xx/3xx within 8s, from Cloudflare's network. That is deliberately the tutorial-code experience: no API keys, no browser cookies, no retries. A service can be "up" for authenticated users while failing here (ReqRes) or serve humans while blocking scripts (placehold.it) — the notes say so. Results are logged verbatim; the OK-rates are computed from the raw checks, which you can pull from /status.json (CORS on).
Bias disclosure: this page is run by Mockbird, a free hosted mock-API service — the "free alternative" links point at our own honest migration guides, which also say when the incumbent is the better tool. If one of these services is down and you just need a working endpoint: curl https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/demo/products works with no signup, and one click creates your own.