Music · head-to-head
Deezer vs iTunes Search
Deezer's REST API serves the catalog metadata behind the streaming app: tracks, albums, artists, playlists, charts, and full-text search. Unusually for a major streaming service its read endpoints are fully keyless — a plain GET against api.deezer.com returns real track data with no App ID, key, or token at all — while OAuth is reserved for endpoints that act on a user's own account, such as favorites or the activity feed. Responses can be requested as either JSON or XML via an output query parameter, and the API is free to use within Deezer's terms.
The iTunes Search API is Apple's free, keyless lookup service for the iTunes Store and Apple Books catalog — music, movies, podcasts, audiobooks, and TV shows — searchable by term or looked up directly by ID. It's throttled to roughly 20 calls per minute per Apple's own guidance, with an Enterprise Partner Feed suggested for heavier volume, and every response comes back as JSON. The docs have moved off the long-dead affiliate.itunes.apple.com host (which no longer resolves) onto Apple's Performance Partners site, but the API itself, at itunes.apple.com/search, is unchanged and live.
| Deezer | iTunes Search | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | None | None |
| Pricing | free | free |
| Formats | JSON, XML | JSON |
| CORS | no | yes |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |
iTunes Search supports CORS, while Deezer doesn't — pick iTunes Search for direct browser calls.