Art & Design · head-to-head
Art Institute of Chicago vs Rijksmuseum
The Art Institute of Chicago publishes its full collection of 130,000+ objects as a versioned, keyless REST API (api.artic.edu/api/v1) built on the same data that powers its own website and mobile app, with IIIF-based endpoints for zoomable, high-resolution images. A live GET against a real artwork record returned genuine JSON carrying Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *, reconfirming both auth None and cors yes with no key required.
The Rijksmuseum has replaced its old key-gated REST collection API with a free, fully keyless Linked Open Data service: a Linked Art-based Search API at data.rijksmuseum.nl/search/collection and a Persistent Identifier Resolver at id.rijksmuseum.nl, both returning JSON-LD. A live GET against the real search endpoint returned 1,463 genuine matching results for a Rembrandt query with Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *, and its own docs explicitly state no API key is needed — correcting the stored url off its retired /object-metadata/api/ path (now a 404), auth API Key -> None, and cors unknown -> yes.
| Art Institute of Chicago | Rijksmuseum | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | None | None |
| Pricing | free | free |
| Formats | JSON | JSON-LD |
| CORS | yes | yes |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |