While it might seem very simple, holidays and holiday calculations can be a very complex problem when a lot of countries and regions are involved. In fact, while most countries around the world might celebrate similar holidays, there are often big differences between context, time and date.
A good example is Christmas and New Year celebrations. Some countries celebrate Christmas Day on December 25th, some on January 7th, some countries don’t even have the notion of Santa, some don’t acknowledge Christmas at all.
In this post, we will be taking a look at the top five API services that provide this data either for free or for a fee. We will look at what they have to offer and why one might be better suited for your needs versus the other.
Top Applications & Use Cases of Holiday Data
- Payroll Admistration
- Stock Market Trading
- Banking
- Trend Detection and Prediction
- Sales Prediction
Without further ado, let’s look at these services.
1. CalendarIndex Holiday API
The CalendarIndex API returns JSON holiday data covering 100 countries. With their database, developers can access worldwide holidays and working days. The API is available over a secure HTTPS connection for all users. They provide a free version which supports over 2200 countries and countries.
They also provide a paid version which gives users the ability to download json data for a variety of countries. The other thing noticed about the public holidays data they provide is all the associated client libraries which make development easy.
2. PredictHQ
PredictHQ provides one of the most comprehensive datasets when it comes to holidays and working data from countries around the world. They use a sophisticated set of algorithms and machine learning models to clean and aggregate the data. They do not publicly disclose their pricing, however, they allow for a free trial of the API.
3. Holiday API
Holiday API just like the name states, provides a JSON API for countries around the world. They currently have a very limited selection of countries that they support. They currently support 139 countries.
4. TimeAndDate.com
TimeAndDate provides a comprehensive API and data exports for all countries in the world. They do not have a free JSON endpoint or free data export product. Their prices start at $100/year for 1 country and $400/year for up to 3 countries.
They offer a free trial on their product if you want to play around with the data before committing to purchasing. Their API is able to return responses in various formats, namely JSON and XML.
5. WebCal.fi
Similar to the other API listed above WebCal.fi, provides global JSON data for countries around the world. The data is updated frequently. They provide the data for free when used on personal projects. For commercial use, you would have to reach them via their support email.
Conclusion
In conclusion, given the variety of applications of global holiday data, from stock trading to payrolls, it’s important to choose a solution that works best for your situation. There is always the alternative of using an in-house team to maintain a list of holidays for countries you care about.
