The 8 best GNews API alternatives in 2026

Oct 1, 2026

GNews is a popular REST API that searches articles from over 80,000 sources worldwide and returns top headlines based on Google News rankings.

For teams building news-related capabilities into their products, it is a common first stop. However, teams often outgrow it. The free plan allows 100 requests a day, which can be limiting. That free plan is for non-commercial use. Source filtering is not supported yet. Some projects need cited passages for a language model rather than a feed of headlines.

This guide covers eight alternatives, starting with Exa for news search inside an LLM app.

GNews at a glance

The free plan includes 100 requests a day and up to 10 articles per request. Results have a 12-hour delay and 30 days of history, while CORS works only on localhost. GNews states that the free plan cannot be used for commercial projects.

Paid plans remove those limits and start at €49.99 a month for Essential. This plan includes 1,000 requests a day, 25 articles per request, real-time articles, full content, and history back to 2020. Business is €99.99 a month for 5,000 requests a day, and Enterprise is €249.99 a month for 25,000. Annual billing saves 20 percent, and every paid plan starts with a 10-day free trial.

Alternatives for LLM news search

Exa's Search API accepts a plain-language query, a news category, and publication-date filters. It returns ranked pages with highlights relevant to the query. Articles become searchable within minutes of publication.

from exa_py import Exa

exa = Exa()  # reads EXA_API_KEY

results = exa.search(
    "regulatory action against stablecoin issuers in the EU",
    category="news",
    start_published_date="2026-09-10T00:00:00.000Z",
    end_published_date="2026-09-17T00:00:00.000Z",
    num_results=10,
    contents={"highlights": True},
)

for r in results.results:
    print(r.published_date, r.title, r.url)
    print(r.highlights)

The date filters are strict and exclude pages without a publication date. Highlights return matching passages instead of the full page, which are 17x more token-efficient than full-page text. Use include_domains to limit results to outlets you trust, such as a list of trade publications in your market. Search starts at $7 per 1,000 requests, and every account gets $10 in free credits a month, plus a $10 onboarding bonus. For recurring coverage, Exa Monitors run the same search on a schedule and send only new results to a webhook, at $15 per 1,000 requests.

Alternatives for news feeds

NewsData.io gives 200 credits a day, with up to 10 articles per credit. Commercial use: yes. It stands out for its range of endpoints, including crypto and market news, plus AI tags and sentiment on higher plans. The Archive endpoint needs a paid plan and costs 5 credits per call.
Currents gives 250 requests a day, up to 20 results each, over a 30-day window. Commercial use allows internal analysis and linked displays. Customer-facing summaries and republished content require separate terms. Its source directory covers 168 countries and more than 20 languages. Free responses limit article text to a 300-character preview.
NewsAPI.org gives 100 requests a day on its Developer plan, delayed 24 hours. The free plan is limited to development environments and does not allow commercial use. Its Business plan, at $449 a month, searches five years of archives and drops the delay.
Mediastack gives 100 calls a month. The free plan does not allow commercial use, but the $24.99 Standard plan does. It pulls from more than 7,500 sources in more than 50 countries and 13 languages, and every paid plan includes historical data.
TheNewsAPI gives 100 requests a day with 3 articles per request, including real-time and historical data. The API terms do not address commercial use. The site terms limit use to personal, non-commercial purposes, so ask before using the API commercially. Paid plans start at $19 a month, the lowest monthly subscription here.
APITube gives 100 requests a day, 10 articles each, delayed 12 hours. The free-plan FAQ allows commercial use, although the pricing page describes the plan as intended for development and testing. It has the largest stated source count, over 300,000, and includes sentiment and entity tags on every plan.
World News API includes 50 points a day and one month of history. The free plan also requires a backlink. Its terms do not address commercial use. Paid plans from $39 a month add front pages for 6,000 newspapers across 125 countries.

Comparison table

API	Free quota	Commercial use	Historical data	Best for
Exa	$10 a month, plus a $10 onboarding bonus	See Exa's terms	Date-filtered web index	News inside an LLM app
NewsData.io	200 credits a day	Yes	6 months from Basic	Production feeds
Currents	250 requests a day	Internal use, with limits	30 days free, 6 months on Builder	Internal monitoring
NewsAPI.org	100 requests a day	No	1 month free, 5 years on Business	Archive search
Mediastack	100 calls a month	No on free	Paid plans	Multi-language coverage
TheNewsAPI	100 requests a day	Not stated	Included on free	Low-cost entry
APITube	100 requests a day	Yes, per its FAQ	Included on free	Sentiment and entity tags
World News API	50 points a day	Not stated	1 month free, 2022 onward on paid	Newspaper front pages

Migrating from GNews

Most feed APIs use a similar structure, so migration mainly involves renaming fields.

GNews	NewsData.io	Exa
`q`	`q`	`query`
`max`	`size`	`numResults`
`from` and `to`	`from_date` and `to_date`	`startPublishedDate` and `endPublishedDate`
`title`	`title`	`title`
`url`	`link`	`url`
`publishedAt`	`pubDate`	`publishedDate`
`description`	`description`	`highlights`
`content`	`content`	`text`
`source.name`	`source_name`	Domain in url

GNews lang and country map to NewsData's language and country. NewsData's from_date and to_date belong to its archive endpoint, which needs a paid plan. Exa has no language parameter, so name the language in the query text or filter by domain. Exa ranks results by relevance to the query. If you need a feed sorted by publication time, you must sort the results yourself.

FAQ

Is there a free GNews alternative for commercial use?

NewsData.io and APITube allow commercial use on their free plans. Currents allows internal commercial use with links back to sources. The other free feed plans in this guide are non-commercial, development-only, or silent on the question. We compare the free tiers of eight news APIs in more detail in the best free news APIs.

Which alternative has the most sources?

APITube states more than 300,000 sources, GNews states more than 80,000, and Mediastack states more than 7,500. Each vendor counts sources differently, so test coverage for your topics before you commit.

Can I use a web search API instead of a news API?

Yes, when you need passages and citations rather than a headline feed. AI search APIs are built for that. Exa's news category with date filters covers that case. One request returns both the ranked pages and the passages that answer the query.