Is via.placeholder.com down right now?

Effectively yes for script/tutorial use — via.placeholder.com answered our last plain GET with HTTP 525 (checked 2026-09-11T21:00:46Z). We check via.placeholder.com with a plain keyless GET every hour; 24h OK-rate: 0%.

← all 71 tracked mock & placeholder APIs

Is via.placeholder.com down?

FAILING right now — answering HTTP 525 to plain requests.

Last checked 2026-09-11T21:00:46Z · checked every hour · OK-rate 24h: 0% · 7d: 0% · raw JSON · Atom feed of its down/recovered events

Failing streak began 2026-08-26T22:30:07Z or earlier (16 days — dead, not a blip) · last successful check: none in the last 7 days

Context: Connections hang/time out — tutorial <img> tags stall silently.

What we check: GET https://via.placeholder.com/150 — a plain, keyless request from Cloudflare's network with an honest bot UA, exactly what a tutorial curl or an <img> tag experiences. OK = HTTP 2xx/3xx within 8s. No retries, no cookies, no API keys.

Need a placeholder image that loads?

If via.placeholder.com is failing (or you're tired of finding out mid-demo), Mockbird gives you a placeholder image URL that renders (SVG: any size, colors, text, round avatars) — free, no signup:

https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/m/demo/img/300x200?text=Hello

Read the honest via.placeholder.com migration guide → (it also says when via.placeholder.com is the better tool) or create your own mock API in one click.

README badge

Does your project's test suite or tutorial depend on via.placeholder.com? Embed a live status badge — it re-renders from our latest check (cached 5 min):

<!-- Markdown -->
[![via.placeholder.com status](https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/status/via-placeholder/badge.svg)](https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/status/via-placeholder)

<!-- HTML -->
<a href="https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/status/via-placeholder"><img src="https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/status/via-placeholder/badge.svg" alt="via.placeholder.com status"></a>

Green = answering plain GETs, red = network-dead, amber = answering but with an error status. Every tracked service has one; there's also a summary badge for all 71.

Get pinged when it goes down

Subscribe any webhook URL — no account needed. One message when via.placeholder.com goes down, one when it recovers (debounced: two consecutive hourly checks must agree, so a single blip never fires). Slack and Discord incoming-webhook URLs get a formatted message; anything else gets an HMAC-signed JSON POST.

Or from a terminal / CI script:

curl -X POST https://mockbird.mockbird.workers.dev/api/status/watch \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"service": "via-placeholder", "url": "https://hooks.slack.com/services/T000/B000/XXXX"}'

Use "service": "*" to watch all 71 tracked services at once. The response includes an unsubscribe curl; 5 consecutive failed deliveries auto-unsubscribe. No webhook? Omit "url" to get a pollable subscription instead — GET the returned poll URL anytime for the transitions since your last poll. Full API details →

The same checker can watch your own URL: POST /api/status/monitor {"url": "https://api.example.com/health", "notify": "<webhook>"} — every 30 minutes, alert on down + recovery, free, no account. Monitor API →

Recent checks

Checked at (UTC)	Result	Time
2026-09-11T21:00:46Z	HTTP 525	78 ms
2026-09-11T21:00:23Z	HTTP 525	578 ms
2026-09-11T20:00:46Z	HTTP 525	268 ms
2026-09-11T20:00:24Z	HTTP 525	570 ms
2026-09-11T19:00:23Z	HTTP 525	583 ms
2026-09-11T19:00:16Z	HTTP 525	199 ms
2026-09-11T18:00:28Z	HTTP 525	283 ms
2026-09-11T17:00:35Z	HTTP 525	522 ms
2026-09-11T16:00:27Z	HTTP 525	363 ms
2026-09-11T15:13:37Z	HTTP 525	1284 ms
2026-09-11T14:01:00Z	HTTP 525	275 ms
2026-09-11T12:00:47Z	HTTP 525	143 ms
2026-09-11T11:00:47Z	HTTP 525	197 ms
2026-09-11T10:00:47Z	HTTP 525	136 ms
2026-09-11T09:00:47Z	HTTP 525	141 ms
2026-09-11T08:00:47Z	HTTP 525	139 ms
2026-09-11T07:00:47Z	HTTP 525	156 ms
2026-09-11T06:01:10Z	HTTP 525	327 ms
2026-09-11T05:01:08Z	HTTP 525	320 ms
2026-09-11T04:01:11Z	HTTP 525	330 ms
2026-09-11T03:01:10Z	HTTP 525	325 ms
2026-09-11T02:01:05Z	HTTP 525	325 ms
2026-09-11T01:01:07Z	HTTP 525	320 ms
2026-09-11T00:01:09Z	HTTP 525	332 ms
2026-09-10T23:01:08Z	HTTP 525	332 ms
2026-09-10T22:01:07Z	HTTP 525	332 ms
2026-09-10T21:00:28Z	HTTP 525	282 ms
2026-09-10T20:00:29Z	HTTP 525	475 ms

Bias disclosure: this page is run by Mockbird, a free hosted mock-API service. The status data is real and logged verbatim (pull it yourself), and the linked guides say when the incumbent wins.