Perspective API

service

proprietary hosted API by Jigsaw/Google(no weights, no self-host)

access

free with quota

scores

toxicity + related attributes

source

closed

license

proprietary

Closed, API-only hosted classifier with no weights or public source, used under Google's API terms, which forbid extracting its source code. The service is sunsetting and goes out of service after 2026, which is a fact about availability rather than about openness.

• https://developers.google.com/terms/ recorded 2026-09-29

  The Google APIs Terms of Service, which the Perspective site links as its API Terms, grant no ownership or source: "you do not acquire ownership of any rights in our APIs" and users may not "Reverse engineer or attempt to extract the source code from any API or any related software".

• https://perspectiveapi.com/ recorded 2026-09-29

  Perspective's own site is a sunset notice for a hosted service: "Perspective API is sunsetting and service is officially ending after 2026", "The service will remain active until December 31, 2026", and "Usage requests will be addressed until February 2026". Searched the body for github, open source, license, self-host and download: no source repository, license grant or self-hostable build is offered; the only terms linked are Google's site and API terms.

Jigsaw's own site publishes no usage figure for Perspective, so its reach is read from years of broad, widely reported use in comment moderation by news publishers and platforms. That describes established use rather than where the product stands today: Google is sunsetting the API, which goes out of service after 2026, citing falling demand for a standalone tool in this area.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_API recorded 2026-09-29

  Wikipedia's Jigsaw article (Perspective API redirects to its Perspective section) records the 2017 launch and early deployment: "In February 2017, Jigsaw and Google launched the free Perspective" API as "a new tool for web publishers to identify toxic comments that can undermine a civil exchange of ideas", with The New York Times, The Guardian, The Economist and Wikipedia named as "launch partners included", and "Jigsaw stated that it was sunsetting the Perspective API (with the service ending after 2026)".

• https://perspectiveapi.com/ recorded 2026-09-29

  Perspective's own site is now a sunset notice: "Over the years, Perspective has grown from an experimental tool into a helpful solution for publishers and platforms" and "AI capabilities have evolved, and there is now less demand for a standalone tool specific to this area". Searched the body for million, requests per, partners, customers and developers: no usage figure of any kind appears.

• https://www.lassomoderation.com/blog/what-is-perspective-api/ recorded 2026-09-29

  A third-party moderation vendor's overview describes long-standing broad use: "For nearly a decade, platforms like the New York Times and Reddit have relied on the Perspective API to keep toxic comments in check" and "the API has grown to serve over 1,000 partners across news publishers, social platforms, gaming communities, and educational tools", with the service "Sunsetting after December 31, 2026".

Perspective scores toxicity, severe toxicity, insult, threat, profanity and identity attack across many languages, from a small and stable production attribute set. That set is narrower than a full safety taxonomy or a policy-conditioned model that reasons over an open set of categories a user defines.

• https://commentanalyzer.googleapis.com/$discovery/rest?version=v1alpha1 recorded 2026-09-29

  The API's own discovery document describes a hosted comment-scoring service: "The Perspective Comment Analyzer API provides information about the potential impact of a comment on a conversation", with requests carrying "The language(s) of the comment and context. If none are specified, we attempt to automatically detect the language" and "Specification of requested attributes".

• https://www.lassomoderation.com/blog/perspective-api-toxicity/ recorded 2026-09-29

  A third-party moderation vendor's guide lists the production attribute set: "The production attributes (TOXICITY, SEVERE_TOXICITY, IDENTITY_ATTACK, INSULT, PROFANITY, THREAT) are stable and well-tested", plus "experimental attributes like ATTACK_ON_COMMENTER, INFLAMMATORY, SPAM, and OBSCENE", and notes "Google announced that Perspective API will sunset after December 31, 2026".