A reqres alternative with more than users and a login

reqres.in is a small hosted REST API — a paginated list of users, a couple of resource collections, register and login endpoints that hand back a token, and a delay parameter for testing spinners. Its virtue is how quickly it can be understood: the whole surface fits on one page, and the pagination is correct enough to build a real list view against.

At a glance

reqres.in compared with this playground, checked 2026-09.
	reqres.in	Fun API Playground
Surface	One page — users, a couple of collections, login	39 APIs across four categories
Tokens	A string handed back; nothing verifies it	Signed JWTs with real claims and a real expiry
OAuth 2.0	Not offered	Authorization code, client credentials, refresh
Roles	None	Viewer token reads, and gets a 403 on DELETE
Writes persist	No	Yes, so requests can be chained
Pagination	Page-number, correct enough to build against	Page-number and cursor, with the edge cases
Artificial delay	A ?delay parameter	Async 202 job polling instead
Learning curve	Minutes — the whole API fits in your head	A catalog to navigate

Where it stops

Its writes are not persisted, its tokens are not real credentials that anything verifies, and its error surface is a handful of cases rather than a system. For a UI demo that needs a plausible user list and a login screen, that is plenty. For testing what your client does when a token expires halfway through a suite, or when two writes collide, there is nothing there to test against.

What is different here

The auth here is the part that differs most. `POST /auth/v1/login` issues a genuinely signed JWT with real claims and a real expiry; the OAuth 2.0 endpoints run authorization-code, client-credentials and refresh-token flows properly, so a token can be obtained, used, expired and refreshed within one test run. Role separation is real too: the viewer token succeeds on reads and returns 403 on a DELETE, which is the case most auth tests never cover.

What reqres.in does better

Very small and immediately comprehensible — you can hold the entire API in your head.
A built-in delay parameter that makes loading states easy to demonstrate.
A user-list shape that drops straight into most tutorial UIs.

What this playground does better

JWTs that are actually signed and actually expire, and OAuth flows that actually complete.
Role-based access with a genuine 403, not just a 401 for a missing token.
Writes that persist for the duration of your sandbox, so requests can be chained.
Pagination in both page-number and cursor form, with the edge cases that break clients.
39 domains instead of one, so the data is not the thing you are concentrating on.

Which to use

reqres is the better choice for a quick UI mock-up with a login screen. This is the better choice once the auth behaviour itself is what you are testing.

Checked against reqres.in as of 2026-09.

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All 39 mock REST APIs · Getting started guide · About this playground

Last updated 2 October 2026