Business · head-to-head
Charity Search vs Instatus
CharityAPI (rebranded from OrgHunter) looks up US nonprofits by EIN across basic profile, financial, geolocation, and NTEE-classification datasets, sourced from IRS filings and pitched at donation platforms and vetting tools. Its real backend at `data.orghunter.com` trades a query-string `user_key` for JSON responses and rejects unauthenticated calls with a 403, and offers free development-phase API keys with production usage gated behind paid or affiliate-only plans.
Instatus's REST API (`api.instatus.com`) lets a status-page owner script incident and maintenance updates, component status changes, and subscriber management for their own hosted status page. Every request must carry an `Authorization: Bearer <API_KEY>` header and a page ID from the dashboard, confirmed live via a 401 "API key is not sent in request header" response on an unauthenticated GET to `/v1/pages`; the same endpoint echoes a matching `access-control-allow-origin` on both a GET and a separate OPTIONS preflight sent with an Origin header, confirming the API is browser-callable. Instatus itself runs a permanent free-forever plan alongside paid per-project tiers, with no separate gate on API access.
| Charity Search | Instatus | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | API Key | API Key |
| Pricing | freemium | freemium |
| Formats | JSON | JSON |
| CORS | no | yes |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |
Instatus supports CORS, while Charity Search doesn't — pick Instatus for direct browser calls.