Newsdata.io PHP Client

The official PHP client for the Newsdata.io REST API. It wraps every endpoint (latest, archive, sources, crypto, market, count, crypto/count, market/count) with client-side parameter validation, automatic retries with exponential backoff, and a typed exception hierarchy. It also covers the real-time WebSocket service: register, list, and delete queries, and stream the matching news as it is published.

Requirements

PHP 7.3+ with the curl and json extensions.

Installation

With Composer:

composer require newsdataio/newsdataapi

Without Composer, include the bundled autoloader:

require_once '/path/to/php-client/autoload.php';

Quickstart

use NewsdataIO\NewsdataApi;
use NewsdataIO\Exception\NewsdataException;

$client = new NewsdataApi(NEWSDATA_API_KEY);

try {
    $response = $client->get_latest_news([
        'q'        => 'bitcoin',
        'country'  => ['us', 'gb'],   // string or array of strings
        'language' => 'en',
    ]);

    foreach ($response->results as $article) {
        echo $article->title, PHP_EOL;
    }
} catch (NewsdataException $e) {
    echo 'Request failed: ', $e->getMessage(), PHP_EOL;
}

Pass ['language' => ['en', 'fr']] and the array is sent comma-separated. By default the response is decoded to objects; call $client->setDecodeJsonAsArray(true) to get associative arrays instead.

Endpoints

Method	Endpoint	Notes
get_latest_news($data)	/1/latest	Real-time news
news_archive($data)	/1/archive	Historical news
news_sources($data)	/1/sources	Available sources
get_crypto_news($data)	/1/crypto	Cryptocurrency news
get_market_news($data)	/1/market	Market / financial news
get_news_count($data)	/1/count	Aggregate counts (requires from_date, to_date)
get_crypto_count($data)	/1/crypto/count	Aggregate crypto counts (requires dates)
get_market_count($data)	/1/market/count	Aggregate market counts (requires dates)
get_websocket_register($data)	/1/websocket/register	Register a real-time query
get_websocket_fetch()	/1/websocket/fetch	List registered queries
get_websocket_delete($id)	/1/websocket/delete	Delete a registered query

Each $data value may be a single string or an array of strings. Parameter names are case-insensitive. See the Newsdata.io documentation — or the OpenAPI 3.1 spec — for the full parameter reference per endpoint.

$client->get_market_news(['q' => 'apple', 'market_id' => 'AAPL']);

$client->get_news_count([
    'from_date' => '2024-01-01',
    'to_date'   => '2024-01-31',
    'interval'  => 'day',
]);

Raw query

To pass a query string or full URL verbatim, use raw_query. It is mutually exclusive with every other parameter and is validated against the endpoint's allowed keys:

$client->get_latest_news(['raw_query' => 'q=bitcoin&country=us&language=en']);

Client-side validation

Before any request is sent, parameters are validated and normalized. A NewsdataValidationError is raised (without spending API quota) when:

• a parameter is not accepted by that endpoint;
• mutually-exclusive parameters are set together — q/qInTitle/qInMeta, country/excludecountry, category/excludecategory, language/excludelanguage, domain/domainurl/excludedomain;
• size is outside 1–50;
• sentiment_score is set without sentiment;
• a count endpoint is missing from_date or to_date.

Booleans (full_content, image, video, removeduplicate) are coerced to 1 / 0.

Real-time news (WebSocket)

Register a query first — the returned registration_id identifies it from then on:

use NewsdataIO\NewsdataApi;
use NewsdataIO\NewsdataWebSocket;

$api = new NewsdataApi('YOUR_API_KEY');
$ws  = new NewsdataWebSocket($api);

$registered = $ws->register(['q' => 'bitcoin', 'language' => 'en']);
$registrationId = $registered->results->registration_id;

register() takes the familiar filter names (q, country, language, domain, …) — no date or paging filters, since a registered query matches news as it is published. Registering an identical query twice throws NewsdataAPIError with status 409; the existing id is in the response body. fetch() lists every registered query and delete($id) removes one. All three also exist directly on the API object as get_websocket_register(), get_websocket_fetch() and get_websocket_delete().

Then stream. stream() is a generator — break out of the loop to stop, and the connection closes for you:

foreach ($ws->stream($registrationId) as $response) {
    foreach ($response->results as $article) {
        echo $article->title, ' - ', $article->link, PHP_EOL;
    }
}

Transient drops (network errors, server restarts, abnormal closes) are reconnected automatically with a capped exponential backoff. Pass 'reconnect' => false to stop on the first disconnect instead. A permanent rejection — bad API key or unknown registration_id, exhausted API credits, or too many simultaneous devices — throws NewsdataWebSocketAuthError and is not retried.

The server always accepts the handshake and then closes with code 1008 when the connection is refused, carrying one of three reasons: invalid credentials or registration not found, api limit reached, or device limit reached (more than 5 devices on one registration_id). Every other close code — including 1013 (send timeout, meaning the client read too slowly) — is transient and reconnects.

Each delivered article consumes 1 API credit per connected device.

Catch it like any other client error:

use NewsdataIO\Exception\NewsdataWebSocketAuthError;
use NewsdataIO\Exception\NewsdataWebSocketError;

try {
    foreach ($ws->stream($registrationId) as $response) {
        // ...
    }
} catch (NewsdataWebSocketAuthError $e) {
    echo 'rejected: ', $e->getMessage(), PHP_EOL;
} catch (NewsdataWebSocketError $e) {
    echo 'stream error: ', $e->getMessage(), PHP_EOL;
}

All connection options are optional:

$ws = new NewsdataWebSocket($api, [
    'baseUrl'           => 'wss://ws.newsdata.io/ws/event', // staging / self-hosted
    'reconnect'         => true,   // auto-reconnect on transient drops; default true
    'reconnectDelay'    => 1.0,    // seconds before the first reconnect (doubles each retry)
    'reconnectDelayMax' => 30.0,   // cap on the reconnect delay
    'handshakeTimeout'  => 10,     // seconds to wait for the opening handshake
]);

Streaming needs one extra package. PHP has no WebSocket client in core, so stream() requires phrity/websocket (PHP 8.1+):

composer require phrity/websocket

It is an optional dependency — everything else in this SDK, including the three websocket/* management endpoints above, works without it on every supported PHP version. stream() throws a NewsdataWebSocketError telling you to install it if it is missing.

Runnable example: examples/websocket.php.

Error handling

use NewsdataIO\Exception\NewsdataValidationError;
use NewsdataIO\Exception\NewsdataAuthError;
use NewsdataIO\Exception\NewsdataRateLimitError;
use NewsdataIO\Exception\NewsdataAPIError;
use NewsdataIO\Exception\NewsdataNetworkError;

try {
    $client->get_latest_news(['q' => 'news']);
} catch (NewsdataValidationError $e) {
    // bad parameter — $e->getParam()
} catch (NewsdataAuthError $e) {
    // 401 / 403
} catch (NewsdataRateLimitError $e) {
    // 429 — $e->getRetryAfter()
} catch (NewsdataAPIError $e) {
    // other API error — $e->getStatusCode(), $e->getResponseBody()
} catch (NewsdataNetworkError $e) {
    // cURL / connectivity failure
}

Hierarchy (all under the NewsdataIO\Exception namespace):

NewsdataException                       (catch-all base)
├── NewsdataValidationError             (getParam())
├── NewsdataAPIError                    (getStatusCode(), getResponseBody())
│   ├── NewsdataAuthError               (401 / 403)
│   ├── NewsdataRateLimitError          (429; getRetryAfter())
│   └── NewsdataServerError             (5xx)
├── NewsdataNetworkError                (cURL / connectivity)
└── NewsdataWebSocketError              (real-time stream)
    └── NewsdataWebSocketAuthError      (policy-violation close 1008)

Configuration

$client->setTimeouts($connectSeconds = 10, $totalSeconds = 30);
$client->setRetries($maxAttempts = 5, $backoffBaseSeconds = 2.0);
$client->setRetryBackoffMax($seconds = 60.0);
$client->setDecodeJsonAsArray(true);
$client->setProxy([
    'CURLOPT_PROXY'        => 'proxy.example.com',
    'CURLOPT_PROXYPORT'    => 8080,
    'CURLOPT_PROXYUSERPWD' => 'user:pass',
]);
$client->setLogger($psr3Logger);   // API key is redacted from logged URLs

Retries cover network errors, HTTP 429, and 5xx responses. 429 honors the Retry-After header (integer seconds or HTTP-date); otherwise backoff is exponential (2s → 4s → 8s …, capped). Auth and other 4xx errors are never retried.

Response metadata for the most recent call:

$client->getLastResponse()->getHttpCode();
$client->getLastResponse()->getHeaders();

Development

composer install
composer test        # or: vendor/bin/phpunit

The test suite (tests/) covers the parameter validator and runs entirely offline — no API key required.

Related libraries

Official Newsdata.io clients across languages and runtimes:

• Python — newsdataapi/python-client (PyPI)
• Node.js — newsdataapi/newsdata-nodejs-client (npm)
• React (hooks) — newsdataapi/newsdata-reactjs-client (npm)
• Java — newsdataapi/newsdata-java-sdk (Maven Central)
• .NET — newsdataapi/newsdata-dotnet-sdk (NuGet)
• Go — newsdataapi/newsdata-go-client (pkg.go.dev)
• Dart / Flutter — newsdataapi/newsdata-flutter-client (pub.dev)
• MCP Server (AI assistants) — newsdataapi/newsdata.io-mcp (PyPI)

Also see free news datasets for ML / NLP work.

License

MIT.