Motivated by the theory of Cuntz-Krieger algebras we define and study C * -algebras associated to directed quantum graphs. For classical graphs the C * -algebras obtained this way can be viewed as free analogues of Cuntz-Krieger algebras, and need not be nuclear.We study two particular classes of quantum graphs in detail, namely the trivial and the complete quantum graphs. For the trivial quantum graph on a single matrix block, we show that the associated quantum Cuntz-Krieger algebra is neither unital, nuclear nor simple, and does not depend on the size of the matrix block up to KK-equivalence. In the case of the complete quantum graphs we use quantum symmetries to show that, in certain cases, the corresponding quantum Cuntz-Krieger algebras are isomorphic to Cuntz algebras. These isomorphisms, which seem far from obvious from the definitions, imply in particular that these C * -algebras are all pairwise non-isomorphic for complete quantum graphs of different dimensions, even on the level of KK-theory.We explain how the notion of unitary error basis from quantum information theory can help to elucidate the situation.We also discuss quantum symmetries of quantum Cuntz-Krieger algebras in general.