MangaDex vs Trace Moe

MangaDex's API was reconfirmed live at api.mangadex.org with a real manga listing, but a direct cross-origin GET and an OPTIONS preflight both came back without an Access-Control-Allow-Origin header, so browser-based CORS calls fail — corrected to no. Authentication was also corrected from a bare API key to MangaDex's real scheme: OAuth 2 personal clients using a password grant tied to a user's account, since MangaDex has no API-key concept — public reads need no auth at all. The API and its manga remain entirely free, funded by the site rather than gated behind the API.

Trace.moe's real search endpoint at api.trace.moe was reconfirmed live — a deliberately broken image URL returned a proper JSON error rather than a network failure, and a real image search (a Gochuumon wa Usagi Desuka 2 screenshot) returned genuine matching-scene data with Access-Control-Allow-Origin echoing the request's Origin. It's free and keyless up to a 100-search/24-hour quota per IP (confirmed live via GET /me, not the 1,000/month figure some third-party write-ups repeat); Patreon sponsorship raises both the daily quota and concurrency.