Science & Math · head-to-head
inspirehep.net vs USGS Water Services
INSPIRE-HEP is the high-energy physics community's literature database, covering papers, authors, institutions, and citation graphs going back decades. Its REST API returns JSON records for literature, author, and conference searches and is fully keyless, with no registration or rate-limit tier to opt into.
USGS Water Services is a keyless REST API serving real-time and historical streamflow, groundwater, and water-quality readings from thousands of USGS monitoring sites across the US, in WaterML XML, JSON, or the legacy tab-delimited RDB format. The agency has announced it will decommission this API family in early 2027 in favor of its new Water Data APIs (api.waterdata.usgs.gov), with no degradation planned before August 2026 — new integrations should target the successor service.
| inspirehep.net | USGS Water Services | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | None | None |
| Pricing | free | free |
| Formats | JSON | JSON, XML, RDB |
| CORS | yes | yes |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |
USGS Water Services supports 3 response formats, while inspirehep.net offers fewer — pick USGS Water Services for more integration flexibility.