Published at
Updated at
Reading time
3min

I'm a tab hoarder. There you have it! I often discover resources and keep their browser tabs open for months. They might come in handy in the future, right?

Today I'm cleaning up my browser tabs, putting things into my bookmarking system, my blog. So, here are some free image APIs to generate random user avatars.

DiceBear avatars

DiceBear avatars - DiceBear is an avatar library for designers and developers. You can choose between simple identicons and lovely designed characters.  And best of all: We provide a simple and free HTTP API that you can use right away!

DiceBear provides many hash-dependent avatars. Every URL hash (a user id or name) generates a new avatar image.

The service offers many different avatar style options, too.

And they'll get bonus points for serving SVGs! ๐Ÿ’ฏ

DiceBear Avatars
  • Generated avatar for https://api.dicebear.com/7.x/pixel-art/svgapi.dicebear.com/7.x/pixel-art/svg
  • Generated avatar for https://api.dicebear.com/7.x/bottts/pngapi.dicebear.com/7.x/bottts/png
  • Generated avatar for https://api.dicebear.com/7.x/lorelei/svgapi.dicebear.com/7.x/lorelei/svg

RoboHash

RoboHash - Generate Unique images from any text

RoboHash provides hash-dependent avatars, too. They're not serving SVGs but PNGs. Nevertheless, I'm super into the Futurama style!

RoboHash Avatars
  • Generated avatar for https://robohash.org/stefan-onerobohash.org/stefan-one
  • Generated avatar for https://robohash.org/stefan-tworobohash.org/stefan-two
  • Generated avatar for https://robohash.org/stefan-threerobohash.org/stefan-three

Random Users

Random users โ€“ Generate random user profile pictures and names to use them as placeholders for your prototypes and design projects

Random Users shines with realistic user avatars which can be handy when building realistic mocks and wireframes.

Random Users Images
  • Generated avatar for https://xsgames.co/randomusers/avatar.php?g=malexsgames.co/randomusers/avatar.php?g=male
  • Generated avatar for https://xsgames.co/randomusers/avatar.php?g=femalexsgames.co/randomusers/avatar.php?g=female
  • Generated avatar for https://xsgames.co/randomusers/avatar.php?g=pixelxsgames.co/randomusers/avatar.php?g=pixel

Multiavatar API

Multiavatar API โ€” 12 Billion Unique Multicultural Avatars

Tom Doan shot me an email and shared the Multiavatar API with me. The style is not really my thing, but it's great that the service offers SVG and PNGs.

Multiavatar API
  • Generated avatar for https://api.multiavatar.com/stefan.svgapi.multiavatar.com/stefan.svg
  • Generated avatar for https://api.multiavatar.com/kathrin.svgapi.multiavatar.com/kathrin.svg
  • Generated avatar for https://api.multiavatar.com/zoe.svgapi.multiavatar.com/zoe.svg

Boring avatars

Boring avatars is actually a React library to generate avatars but the maintainers offer an API endpoint, too!

The API shines with six different styles, configurable colors and controllable size! And the beam style is very cute.

Boring avatars
  • Generated avatar for https://source.boringavatars.com/beam/120/Stefan?colors=264653,f4a261,e76f51source.boringavatars.com/beam/120/Stefan?colors=264653,f4a261,e76f51
  • Generated avatar for https://source.boringavatars.com/bauhaus/120/Stefan?colors=264653,2a9d8f,e9c46asource.boringavatars.com/bauhaus/120/Stefan?colors=264653,2a9d8f,e9c46a
  • Generated avatar for https://source.boringavatars.com/pixel/120/Stefan?colors=26a653,2a1d8f,79646asource.boringavatars.com/pixel/120/Stefan?colors=26a653,2a1d8f,79646a

Conclusion

I just love that we have all these random APIs available these days! ๐Ÿ’™

I'll try to extend this post in the future. If you know of more avatar APIs, shoot them my way.

If you enjoyed this article...

Join 5.5k readers and learn something new every week with Web Weekly.

Web Weekly โ€” Your friendly Web Dev newsletter
Reply to this post and share your thoughts via good old email.
Stefan standing in the park in front of a green background

About Stefan Judis

Frontend nerd with over ten years of experience, freelance dev, "Today I Learned" blogger, conference speaker, and Open Source maintainer.

Related Topics

Related Articles