aid: ensembl
name: Ensembl
description: >-
  Ensembl is a genome annotation database and browser maintained by the European
  Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. It
  provides comprehensive genome data for vertebrates and other eukaryotic organisms,
  covering gene annotation, variant data, regulatory features, comparative genomics,
  and evolutionary analysis across hundreds of species. The Ensembl REST API offers
  language-agnostic HTTP access to this genome data without requiring local database
  installations or Perl API dependencies.
type: Index
image: https://kinlane-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
access: 3rd-Party
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
position: Producer
tags:
  - Genomics
  - Bioinformatics
  - Genome Annotation
  - Variant Annotation
  - Comparative Genomics
  - Life Sciences
  - REST API
url: >-
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/ensembl/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
  - aid: ensembl:rest-api
    name: Ensembl REST API
    description: >-
      The Ensembl REST API (v15.12) provides language-agnostic HTTP access to
      genome annotation data across hundreds of vertebrate and eukaryotic species.
      It exposes 19 endpoint categories covering genome sequences, gene and
      transcript lookups, variant effect prediction (VEP), comparative genomics
      (gene trees, homology, alignments), coordinate mapping between assemblies,
      regulatory features, linkage disequilibrium, ontology and taxonomy queries,
      phenotype annotations, and GA4GH-compliant genomic data access. Both GET
      and POST methods are available; POST endpoints support batch operations
      for multiple identifiers. No authentication is required for public use.
    humanURL: https://rest.ensembl.org
    baseURL: https://rest.ensembl.org
    tags:
      - Genomics
      - Gene Annotation
      - Variant Effect Prediction
      - Comparative Genomics
      - Sequence Retrieval
      - VEP
      - GA4GH
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://rest.ensembl.org/documentation
      - type: Website
        url: https://rest.ensembl.org
      - type: ChangeLog
        url: https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-rest/wiki/Change-Log
      - type: RateLimits
        url: https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-rest/wiki/Rate-Limits
      - type: GitHubRepository
        url: https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-rest
      - type: JSONLd
        url: json-ld/ensembl-rest-api.json
common:
  - type: Website
    url: https://www.ensembl.org
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://rest.ensembl.org/documentation
  - type: RateLimits
    url: https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-rest/wiki/Rate-Limits
  - type: GitHubOrganization
    url: https://github.com/Ensembl
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-rest
  - type: Tutorial
    url: https://github.com/Ensembl/rest-api-jupyter-course
  - type: License
    url: https://github.com/Ensembl/ensembl-rest/blob/main/LICENSE
  - type: TermsOfService
    url: https://www.ensembl.org/info/about/legal/index.html
  - type: PrivacyPolicy
    url: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/data-protection/ensembl/privacy-notice
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/ensembl-plans-pricing.yml
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/ensembl-rate-limits.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/ensembl-finops.yml
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com