Gutendex

aid: gutendex
name: Gutendex
description: Gutendex is a simple, self-hosted JSON-based web API for serving book catalog
  information from Project Gutenberg, providing structured metadata for over 70,000 free
  ebooks including titles, authors, subjects, bookshelves, languages, copyright status,
  media types, downloadable formats, and download counts. The hosted instance at
  gutendex.com runs the open-source Django project by Gareth B. Johnson under the MIT license.
image: https://gutendex.com/static/images/gutendex.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/gutendex/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-05-28'
modified: '2026-05-29'
specificationVersion: '0.20'
type: Index
access: 3rd-Party
x-type: opensource
x-category: Books
x-source: public-apis/public-apis
x-tier: 3
x-tier-reason: bulk-registered-from-public-apis
tags:
  - Books
  - Catalog
  - Ebooks
  - Library
  - Literature
  - Metadata
  - Open Source
  - Project Gutenberg
  - Public APIs
  - Public Domain
apis:
  - aid: gutendex:books
    name: Gutendex Books API
    description: Returns paginated metadata for Project Gutenberg ebooks with filters for
      author birth/death year, copyright status, IDs, languages, MIME type, free-text
      search, topic, and sort order. Also exposes individual book lookup by Project
      Gutenberg ID.
    humanURL: https://gutendex.com
    baseURL: https://gutendex.com
    tags:
      - Books
      - Catalog
      - Project Gutenberg
      - Search
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://gutendex.com
      - type: OpenAPI
        url: openapi/gutendex-api-openapi.yml
      - type: JSONSchema
        url: json-schema/gutendex-book-schema.json
      - type: JSONSchema
        url: json-schema/gutendex-book-list-schema.json
      - type: JSONSchema
        url: json-schema/gutendex-person-schema.json
      - type: JSONSchema
        url: json-schema/gutendex-format-schema.json
      - type: JSONSchema
        url: json-schema/gutendex-error-schema.json
      - type: JSONLD
        url: json-ld/gutendex-context.jsonld
      - type: NaftikoCapability
        url: capabilities/gutendex-books.yaml
    contact:
      - FN: Gareth B. Johnson
        url: https://github.com/garethbjohnson
common:
  - type: Website
    url: https://gutendex.com
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://gutendex.com
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/gutendex-api-openapi.yml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/gutendex-book-schema.json
  - type: JSONLD
    url: json-ld/gutendex-context.jsonld
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/garethbjohnson/gutendex
  - type: PublicAPIsListing
    url: https://github.com/public-apis/public-apis
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/gutendex-plans-pricing.yml
  - type: Pricing
    url: plans/gutendex-plans-pricing.yml
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/gutendex-rate-limits.yml
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: rules/gutendex-rules.yml
  - type: Vocabulary
    url: vocabulary/gutendex-vocabulary.yml
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://gutendex.com
    description: No authentication required; the hosted instance is publicly accessible.
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://github.com/garethbjohnson/gutendex/wiki/Installation-Guide
  - type: Tools
    title: Project Gutenberg MCP Server (bobbyhouse)
    url: https://github.com/bobbyhouse/project-gutenberg-mcp
  - type: Tools
    title: Project Gutenberg MCP Server (vellankis-space)
    url: https://github.com/vellankis-space/project-gutenberg-mcp-server
  - type: Tools
    title: Gutenberg MCP Server (nasimcoderex)
    url: https://github.com/nasimcoderex/gutenberg-mcp-server
  - type: Features
    data:
      - name: Free Public API
        description: No API key, no signup, no rate limit documented; gutendex.com is openly available.
      - name: 70,000+ Ebook Catalog
        description: Mirrors the full Project Gutenberg catalog of free public-domain ebooks.
      - name: Rich Filtering
        description: Filter by author birth/death year, copyright status, language, MIME type, IDs, search keywords, and topic.
      - name: Multiple Sort Orders
        description: Sort results by popularity (default), ascending ID, or descending ID.
      - name: Multi-format Downloads
        description: Each book exposes a Format object mapping MIME types (HTML, EPUB, MOBI, plain text, JPEG) to direct download URLs.
      - name: Bookshelves and Subjects
        description: Books are tagged with Library of Congress subject headings and curated Project Gutenberg bookshelves.
      - name: Multi-language Support
        description: Books are indexed by two-character ISO language codes; filter by multiple languages at once.
      - name: Self-Hostable
        description: MIT-licensed Django app that operators can run on their own infrastructure with nightly Project Gutenberg catalog sync.
  - type: UseCases
    data:
      - name: Literature Analytics
        description: Power large-scale analysis of public-domain literature by ingesting the structured Project Gutenberg catalog.
      - name: Educational Apps
        description: Build classroom or self-study apps that surface public-domain texts by subject, author, or reading level.
      - name: Reading Recommendation Engines
        description: Use the download_count and bookshelf data to recommend popular classics or themed reading lists.
      - name: Digital Library Backends
        description: Power library catalog interfaces and ebook reader apps with a clean JSON facade over Project Gutenberg's XML archives.
      - name: Natural Language Processing Datasets
        description: Use the catalog to discover bulk text downloads for training language models on public-domain corpora.
      - name: Citation and Reference Tools
        description: Power author/title lookup widgets in citation managers and academic writing tools.
  - type: Integrations
    data:
      - name: Project Gutenberg
        description: Upstream source. Gutendex nightly-ingests the official Project Gutenberg XML catalog and republishes it as JSON.
      - name: Django REST Framework
        description: Built on Django + Django REST Framework. Operators can extend the API with additional viewsets.
      - name: Model Context Protocol
        description: Community-maintained MCP servers expose Project Gutenberg / Gutendex to LLM agents (bobbyhouse, vellankis-space, nasimcoderex).
      - name: PostgreSQL / SQLite
        description: Default Django storage backends used by self-hosted instances for catalog persistence.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: [email protected]
    url: https://apievangelist.com