Dictionaries · head-to-head
Chinese Character Web vs Lingua Robot
The Chinese Character Web API (CCDB) is a free, read-only JSON API built on the Unicode Consortium's Unihan Database, covering Mandarin and Cantonese readings, Japanese on'yomi/kun'yomi, radicals, stroke counts, definitions, and simplified/traditional variant mappings for CJK Unified Ideographs, filterable by character-set encodings like GB2312, Big5, and Shift JIS. A live GET against /version returned a real 200 JSON body and Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * on the same Apache-served host.
Lingua Robot is a RapidAPI-hosted REST dictionary covering more than 800,000 English lexical entries — words, phrasal verbs, and multiword expressions — with definitions, pronunciations, and morpheme/lemma data returned as JSON, documented on a separate Apiary reference site rather than its own marketing homepage. A live unauthenticated request against its real RapidAPI proxy host returned a reflected `access-control-allow-origin` header plus `access-control-allow-credentials: true`, reconfirming CORS; its free Basic tier covers 2,500 requests/day (then $0.004 each), with paid Pro/Ultra/Mega plans ($10-$99/month) raising the daily ceiling.
| Chinese Character Web | Lingua Robot | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | None | API Key |
| Pricing | free | freemium |
| Formats | JSON | JSON |
| CORS | yes | yes |
| HTTPS | No | Yes |
Chinese Character Web needs no API key, while Lingua Robot requires API Key — pick Chinese Character Web to start without signup.