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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 2026-08-21

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 2026-08-21, 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

Sonto is an independent third-party service and is not affiliated with ByteTools or ByteVancer. Details on this page were verified on 2026-08-21; always check the official documentation before relying on this API in production, as terms and limits can change.