Dictionaries · head-to-head
Chinese Character Web vs Oxford
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.
Oxford Dictionaries API (Oxford Languages) exposes definitions, translations, and lexical metadata sourced from Oxford University Press's own databases across dozens of languages, authenticated with an app ID/key pair from its developer portal. New accounts start on a free Sandbox tier that emulates the live API for evaluation before moving to paid production plans, with custom Enterprise licensing available from an annual per-language fee.
| Chinese Character Web | Oxford | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | None | API Key |
| Pricing | free | freemium |
| Formats | JSON | JSON |
| CORS | yes | no |
| HTTPS | No | Yes |
Chinese Character Web needs no API key, while Oxford requires API Key — pick Chinese Character Web to start without signup.