Best of · Everyday APIs
Best hobby, sport and recreation APIs for AI agents
All 6 ranked hobby, sport and recreation APIs on the Anchor benchmark, with a pick for each need and where each one falls short. Scores come from public evidence, re-checked as vendors change.
- 6 ranked
- 0 agent-ready
- 1 hosted endpoints
- Updated 3 November 2026
Top three
Picks by need
Worked out from the scores, prices and facts, so they change when the research does.
Schema & documentation
72/100 on schema & documentation, against 50 for the overall leader.
Agent ergonomics
63/100 on agent ergonomics, against 49 for the overall leader.
Maintenance & community
60/100 on maintenance & community, against 40 for the overall leader.
Transparency & trust
65/100 on transparency & trust, against 59 for the overall leader.
The shortlist
| # | Tool | Grade | Best for | Price | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Strava MCP Connector + API Strava, Inc. |
E 45.8 | A personal assistant reading one subscriber's training history with consent. | Paid | Hosted |
| 2 | Ride with GPS API Ride with GPS, Inc. |
E 45.2 | An agent planning or reading cycling routes and rides for a consenting person, or running a club's calendar from an organisation account. | $9.99 / mo | Local |
| 3 | Ticketmaster Discovery API Ticketmaster (Live Nation Entertainment) |
E 42.9 | An agent that finds concerts, sport and shows by keyword, place and date and hands the person a link to buy. | Free | Local |
| 4 | Chess.com Published-Data API Chess.com LLC |
E 40.8 | An agent reading a named player's games, ratings and club or tournament history with no setup, or pulling the daily puzzle. | Free | Local |
| 5 | Rebrickable Rebrickable |
F 34.7 | An agent that answers what a person can build from the sets and parts they own, or looks up a set's inventory, with a key the person minted. | Freemium | Local |
| 6 | Ravelry Ravelry, LLC |
F 16.5 | The only API for a knitter's or crocheter's own projects, stash, queue and the pattern database, so it suits a personal craft agent whose operator holds an account and reads the docs. | Free | Local |
How to choose
- Read, write or bookCheck whether the API only reads a catalogue or a person's records, or can also add an entry, play a move or book a place, since most hobby APIs stop at reading.
- Consent for personal recordsCheck how a person grants an agent access to their own training log or collection and how it is revoked, because the data is theirs and the terms say who may hold it.
- Rate limits for a personal agentCheck the calls allowed per hour and per day for one app, as a consumer API often allows far fewer than an agent's loop will make.
- Terms on automationRead whether the API terms forbid AI use, scraping or commercial use, as several hobby services changed those terms in 2024 and 2025.
How the benchmark tests this category. In this run, public evidence against the published checklist. When the task suites run, the same consenting test account read through each listing, a catalogue searched for a fixed item and, where the API allows, one entry written or one booking made. We check what came back, what the rate limit allowed in an hour and what the terms say about the agent doing it.
Each one in detail
Strava MCP Connector + API
E 45.8/100Strava's MCP Connector is a hosted, read-only MCP server that gives a Strava subscriber's AI assistant access to their own activity history, fitness trends, gear and best efforts. The V3 REST API reaches the same data for registered developer apps.
Verdict The MCP Connector is the surface Strava sanctions for an AI assistant, read-only, scoped to one subscriber's account, with its own status component. Its tool list and rate limits are not public, the API Agreement and prices sit on a host our reader could not fetch, and apps serving more than 10 athletes need a review that refuses AI tools.
Best for A personal assistant reading one subscriber's training history with consent.
Strengths
- Official hosted MCP server at https://mcp.strava.com/mcp, read-only, scoped to the subscriber's own account and revocable under Settings, My Apps
- status.strava.com has separate API and MCP Connector components, and no MCP incident appears between 4 August and 3 November 2026
- V3 API with a public Swagger 2.0 file, seven OAuth scopes, 6-hour access tokens and documented rate-limit headers
Weaknesses
- The MCP tool list, schemas and rate-limit numbers are not published; they are only visible after OAuth, which we did not run
- A Strava subscription is needed for the connector and for Standard Tier API apps, and the price is on a page our reader could not fetch
- API apps that expose athlete data to third-party AI tools are not approved beyond 10 athletes, and intermediary platforms are non-compliant
Price PaidAuth OAuthx402 NoHosted
Ride with GPS API
E 45.2/100Ride with GPS is a cycling route planning and navigation service. Its v1 REST API reads and writes a person's routes, trips, collections and events, uploads GPS files, and runs club member, event, experience and point-of-interest tools for organisation accounts.
Verdict A free, documented REST API with a public OpenAPI file, OAuth, filters and pagination on routes and trips, GPS uploads as polled tasks, and a change log updated five times since August 2026. There is no status page, no rate limit figure, no read-only scope, and the organisation-only endpoints need an account priced by email.
Best for An agent planning or reading cycling routes and rides for a consenting person, or running a club's calendar from an organisation account.
Strengths
- Public OpenAPI 3.0.1 file with 34 paths and 61 operations, plus an llms.txt that states the plans and prices
- API terms of 11 September 2026 allow commercial use with no fee, approval or attribution
- Routes and trips can be created from GPX, TCX, FIT or KML uploads and exported in the same formats, with page_size up to 200 and distance, elevation, visibility and archived filters
Weaknesses
- No status page or incident history; status.ridewithgps.com redirects to the home page
- No rate limit figures, no 429 documented, and no idempotency keys on the 30 write operations
- OAuth has a single
userscope with no read-only option, no PKCE and no documented token expiry; basic auth tokens come from the account password
Price $9.99 / moAuth OAuth or keyx402 NoLocal
Ticketmaster Discovery API
E 42.9/100Ticketmaster's Discovery API searches events, attractions, venues and classifications across Ticketmaster, Universe, FrontGate and Ticketmaster Resale, with a key from the developer portal. Buying tickets needs the Partner API, which is open only to approved distribution partners.
Verdict The Discovery API gives a free key 5,000 event searches a day across Ticketmaster's markets, with documented paging, filters and rate-limit headers. There is no OpenAPI contract or current SDK, the key travels in the URL, the terms forbid revenue from the API, and purchase stays behind the partner-only Partner API.
Best for An agent that finds concerts, sport and shows by keyword, place and date and hands the person a link to buy.
Strengths
- Event, attraction, venue and classification search with keyword, date, location, classification and source filters, documented with sample requests and full JSON responses
- Default limits stated in numbers (5,000 calls a day, 5 a second) with Rate-Limit headers and a documented 429
- Free key with no card, plus a Discovery Feed of whole-country files for bulk use with no call limits
Weaknesses
- No OpenAPI or other machine-readable contract and no llms.txt; the only key travels as a query parameter
- The GitHub SDKs were last pushed between 2016 and 2021 and the Java one is archived; no official MCP server
- Terms forbid deriving revenue from the API, cap caching at reasonable periods and let Ticketmaster end the licence or rate limit non-user-driven calls at any time
Price FreeAuth API keyx402 NoLocal
Chess.com Published-Data API
E 40.8/100Chess.com's Published-Data API is a keyless, read-only REST API returning JSON-LD for public player profiles, ratings, monthly game archives with PGN, clubs, tournaments, team matches, country lists, the daily puzzle, streamers and leaderboards.
Verdict A keyless, read-only API that returns a player's monthly game archives with PGN, ratings, clubs and tournaments, with ETag caching and a documented 429 rule. It has been in maintenance mode since December 2024, with no status page, no contract file beyond a bare Postman collection, and a User Agreement that bars robots and AI tools from the Services.
Best for An agent reading a named player's games, ratings and club or tournament history with no setup, or pulling the daily puzzle.
Strengths
- No key or account, and GET https://api.chess.com/pub/player/{username}/games/{YYYY}/{MM} returns a month of games with PGN
- ETag and Last-Modified on responses, with 304 on If-None-Match, and gzip and HTTP/2 supported
- Serial requests are unlimited by policy, with a documented 429 for parallel bursts and a 410 for data that will never return
Weaknesses
- In maintenance and bug-fix only mode since mid-December 2024, with the documentation last reviewed on 10 May 2022
- No status page, no rate limit figures and no error body format; recent club threads report HTTP 500 on match endpoints and stats endpoint failures
- No OpenAPI or llms.txt; the Postman collection has 22 requests with empty descriptions and no examples
Price FreeAuth Nonex402 NoLocal
Rebrickable
F 34.7/100Rebrickable is a LEGO database and community site that matches the sets and parts a person owns to builds they can make, including fan designs (MOCs). Its REST API v3 reads the catalogue and a user's sets, parts and lists.
Verdict Rebrickable's API v3 reads the LEGO catalogue and a person's sets, parts and lists through a public Swagger 2.0 spec with 62 operations and a free key. Calls are limited to about one a second, the docs call the API severely overloaded, user tokens come from a password, and the terms and Pro price were behind a bot check.
Best for An agent that answers what a person can build from the sets and parts they own, or looks up a set's inventory, with a key the person minted.
Strengths
- Public Swagger 2.0 spec with 43 paths and 62 operations covering sets, parts, colours, elements, minifigs, themes and a user's sets, parts, set lists, part lists and lost parts
- Rate limit stated in numbers (one request a second on average) with 429 responses, and page_size up to 1,000 with inc_part_details and inc_color_details flags to size responses
- A free API key with a registered account, and CSV downloads of the whole catalogue for bulk use
Weaknesses
- The API docs say the API is severely overloaded and new apps might be prevented
- User tokens are minted by posting the account's username and password, and the key can travel as a query parameter
- The spec documents no 4xx or 5xx response, no enums and no security scheme, and several summaries are cut off
Price FreemiumAuth API keyx402 NoLocal
Ravelry
F 16.5/100Ravelry is a free community site for knitters, crocheters and fibre artists, with a pattern and yarn database and a personal notebook of projects and stash. Third-party apps connect through an API whose documentation sits behind a login.
Verdict Ravelry runs an API that 36 listed apps use for patterns, projects and stash, with a public Statuspage and terms that do not forbid automation. Its API documentation, developer registration and API group are all behind a login, so an agent's operator must hold a Ravelry account and read the docs there before any call.
Best for The only API for a knitter's or crocheter's own projects, stash, queue and the pattern database, so it suits a personal craft agent whose operator holds an account and reads the docs.
Strengths
- A public apps directory shows 36 third-party apps and tools connecting to Ravelry on iOS, Android and the web
- Statuspage at ravelry.statuspage.io with an uptime metric for www.ravelry.com
- Terms of use (1 February 2017) have no clause against automated access or API use
Weaknesses
- API documentation, developer registration and the API group redirect to the login page, so endpoints, keys, scopes and rate limits could not be checked
- No llms.txt, OpenAPI contract, SDK or changelog found on any public page
- No security.txt, disclosure policy or certification found; /.well-known/security.txt redirects to the login page
Price FreeAuth OAuth or keyx402 NoLocal
Head to head
- Ride with GPS API vs Strava MCP Connector + API E 45.2 vs E 45.8
- Ride with GPS API vs Ticketmaster Discovery API E 45.2 vs E 42.9
Questions
What are the highest-rated hobby, sport and recreation APIs for AI agents?
Strava MCP Connector + API has the highest benchmark score of the 6 ranked hobby, sport and recreation APIs, 45.8 (E). Ride with GPS API is second with 45.2 (E).
How many hobby, sport and recreation APIs are agent-ready?
0 of the 6 ranked here grade BB or better, the bar for agent-ready on the Anchor benchmark.
Which hobby, sport and recreation APIs accept x402 payments?
None of the ranked listings here accepts x402 for its main call yet.
How is this list ranked?
By the Anchor benchmark score out of 100, a weighted mean of the scored categories minus deductions for negative events, from public evidence re-checked as vendors change. Listings cannot pay for a place. The latest assessment behind this page is from 3 November 2026.
How this list is made
The order is the Anchor benchmark score, the same number as on each listing and in the top list. Each listing is graded from public evidence against the benchmark checklist, and the picks above are worked out from those grades, prices and facts. No listing pays for its place, and paid audits or listing help never change a score.
Full ranked table · 3 head-to-head comparisons · Best tools in every category