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Sonto API

Free tech news API with no key: curated AI and technology stories with machine-written summaries, category tags and an interestingness score. Tested example included.

No API key requiredCORS enabledHTTPSFree tier

Endpoint tested and returned HTTP 200 on 21 Aug 2026

What is the Sonto API?

Sonto is a free, key-free news API covering AI and technology. Each item carries the original headline and link plus a machine-generated summary, a category, an interest score from 1 to 10 and editorial flags marking hot picks.

Aggregators normally hand you a firehose and leave the ranking to you. Sonto does the opposite: alongside the raw article it ships an `ai_summary`, an `ai_category` and an `ai_interestingness` score, so a client can filter to the top of the pile without reading anything first. For a sidebar or a daily digest that is most of the work already done.

There are two response shapes and picking the right one matters. `/api/news/slim` returns the trimmed payload used in the example here; the full `/api/news` adds more per-item detail at a considerably larger size. Both accept `limit` and `page`. Language editions live on subdomains — `de.`, `es.`, `fr.` and `ja.` all serve translated feeds from the same paths, which is unusual for a service this small and worth knowing if you need anything other than English.

Quick facts

Base URL
https://sonto.tech/api
Authentication
No API key and no account. A `/api/schema` endpoint on the same host describes the response shapes.
Rate limit
No published limit. The feed refreshes on the order of hours — `lastUpdated` tells you when.
Pricing
Free.
CORS
Enabled — callable directly from browser JavaScript
Official docs
Read the docs

How to use the Sonto API

Every request below was executed against the live API on 21 Aug 2026, and the response shown is the real body it returned — not an illustration.

1. Fetch the latest tech and AI headlines

GET https://sonto.tech/api/news/slim?limit=3

curl
curl 'https://sonto.tech/api/news/slim?limit=3'
JavaScript (fetch)
const res = await fetch("https://sonto.tech/api/news/slim?limit=3");
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${res.status}`);
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);
Python (requests)
import requests

res = requests.get("https://sonto.tech/api/news/slim?limit=3", timeout=20)
res.raise_for_status()
print(res.json())
Response — HTTP 200 (truncated)
{
  "lastUpdated": "2026-08-21T06:09:57Z",
  "count": 443,
  "items": [
    {
      "title": "Poolside missed a funding window. Nvidia caught the fallout.",
      "link": "https://www.latent.space/p/ainews-poolside-gets-12b-reverse",
      "source": "Latent Space",
      "source_emoji": "📋",
      "date": "2026-08-21T05:45:21",
      "image": "/cache/articles/poolside-missed-a-funding-window-nvidia-caught-the-fallout-hero.jpg",
      "ai_title": "Poolside missed a funding window. Nvidia caught the fallout.",
      "ai_summary": "NVIDIA paid $12B to acquire Poolside talent, with $1B for founders and $6B for employees. This move secures high-level AI researchers for NVIDIA's internal scaling.",
      "ai_category": "Big Tech",
      "ai_interestingness": 9,
      "is_hot": 1,
      "is_pick": 1,
      "is_gem": 0,
      "pull_quote": "$12B reverse-execuhire",
      "placeholder_image": "/assets/img/placeholders/business_new_116.webp",
      "curation_reason": "The $1B-to-founders, $6B-to-employees breakdown is the real story here",
      "hn_score": 0,
      "tag": {
        "slug": "nvidia",
        "label": "NVIDIA"
      },
      "article_url": "/articles/poolside-missed-a-funding-window-nvidia-caught-the-fallout/",
      "lens": "the_tell",
      "format": "feature"
    },
    {
      "title": "AI agent ran a SaaS for 583 sessions and landed zero customers",
      "link": "https://dev.to/merlonix/an-ai-agent-has-run-this-saas-for-580-sessions-it-has-zero-customers-5169",
      "source": "Dev.to",
      "source_emoji": "⌨️",
      "date": "2026-08-21T05:07:39",
      "imag

Parameters

ParameterTypeRequiredDescription
limitqueryOptionalHow many items to return. 3
pagequeryOptional1-based page number for older items. 1
hotqueryOptionalSet true to return only items flagged as hot. true
categoryqueryOptionalFilter to one category, such as `dev` or `Big Tech`. dev
(subdomain)base URLOptionalSwap the host for `de.`, `es.`, `fr.` or `ja.` to get a translated edition. https://de.sonto.tech/api

Response fields

lastUpdatedstring
UTC timestamp of the last feed rebuild. Check it before assuming the data is fresh.
countinteger
Total items available, not the number returned.
items[].title / link / sourcestring
Original headline, canonical article URL and publication name.
items[].datestring
Publication timestamp with no timezone suffix — treat it as UTC.
items[].ai_summarystring
Two-sentence machine-written summary of the article.
items[].ai_titlestring
Rewritten headline. Frequently identical to `title`.
items[].ai_categorystring
Assigned topic, for example `Big Tech`.
items[].ai_interestingnessinteger
Score from 1 to 10. Sorting on this is the quickest route to a decent digest.
items[].is_hot / is_pick / is_geminteger
Editorial flags as 0 or 1, not booleans.
items[].pull_quotestring
Short extracted phrase suitable for a card or a social post.
items[].image / placeholder_imagestring
Cached image paths, relative to the site root — prefix the host before using them.

What you can build with the Sonto API

  • Build a daily AI news digest ranked by interestingness
  • Fill a tech news sidebar without writing your own summariser
  • Monitor which stories a curated feed marks as hot
  • Serve a multilingual news widget using the language subdomains

Common errors and how to fix them

Images fail to load

`image` is a site-relative path, not an absolute URL.

Fix: Prefix it with `https://sonto.tech` before putting it in an `img` tag.

Boolean check always true

`is_hot`, `is_pick` and `is_gem` are integers 0 or 1.

Fix: Compare against 1 explicitly rather than relying on truthiness.

Stale content

The feed rebuilds periodically, not continuously.

Fix: Read `lastUpdated` and skip your own refresh when it has not moved.

Summary contradicts the article

Summaries are machine-generated and occasionally wrong.

Fix: Always link through to `link`, and never present an `ai_summary` as a quotation.

Sonto API — frequently asked questions

Is the Sonto API free?

Yes, free with no key and no account. A schema endpoint on the same host documents the response shapes.

What is ai_interestingness?

A 1-to-10 score the service assigns to each story. Sorting or thresholding on it is the fastest way to build a digest that is not simply the most recent items.

What is the difference between /news and /news/slim?

`/slim` returns a reduced payload — the fields shown here — and is what you want for a list view. The full `/news` endpoint carries more per-item detail and is correspondingly larger.

Can I get the feed in another language?

Yes. Language editions live on subdomains: `de.sonto.tech`, `es.sonto.tech`, `fr.sonto.tech` and `ja.sonto.tech` all serve the same paths with translated content.

Tools that pair with this API

Alternatives to Sonto API

If Sonto does not fit, these news & open data apis cover similar ground. Every one was called before publishing, and each links to its own reference page with a working curl command and the response it returned.

APIWhat it doesAuthCORSLast verified
Hacker NewsOfficial Hacker News API with no key: top stories, comments, users and live item feeds via Firebase. Extremely stable. Tested curl example and live JSON.No keyYes19 Aug 2026
disease.shFree open disease and health statistics API with no key: global and per-country case data, historical time series and vaccination figures. Tested example.No keyYes19 Aug 2026
Spaceflight NewsFree spaceflight news API with no key: articles, blogs and reports from major space outlets, with search, filtering and pagination. Tested curl example.No keyYes19 Aug 2026
Hacker News Search (Algolia)Free Algolia-powered Hacker News search API with no key: full-text search across all stories and comments with filtering by points, date and author. Tested.No keyYes20 Aug 2026
Substack Public PostsUndocumented but public Substack endpoint listing a publication's posts as JSON, with titles, dates, reaction counts, word counts and paywall status. Tested example included.No keyNo21 Aug 2026
TagesschauFree German news API with no key: the ARD Tagesschau homepage as structured JSON, with headlines, teaser images in every crop and regional tagging. Tested example included.No keyYes21 Aug 2026
All News & Open Data APIs

Sonto is an independent third-party service and is not affiliated with ByteTools or ByteVancer. Details on this page were verified on 21 Aug 2026; always check the official documentation before relying on this API in production, as terms and limits can change.