# Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore vs Grounding with Bing Search (slim)

> Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore scores 75.2 (BB) to Grounding with Bing Search's 63.7 (B) for web search. Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore is cheaper for web search, $7 against $14 per 1,000 requests. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-web-search-vs-bing-grounding.md (~7,250 tokens) · this version ~4,130 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-web-search-vs-bing-grounding.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-web-search-vs-bing-grounding
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
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Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore scores 75.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Grounding with Bing Search's 63.7 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do web search. Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore is cheaper for web search, $7 against $14 per 1,000 requests.

- Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore: BB 75.2, rank #70 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agentcore-web-search.min.md
- Grounding with Bing Search: B 63.7, rank #502 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bing-grounding.min.md
- Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, good for A team already on AWS that wants agents to search the web through a governed MCP gateway, with owner-set domain lists, IAM or OAuth control and queries kept inside AWS. Ahead on Reliability, 90 against 68; Schema & documentation, 78 against 68; Agent ergonomics, 75 against 61; Security & auth, 85 against 79; Payments & pricing, 30 against 20; Transparency & trust, 77 against 66. Also Cheaper for web search, $7 against $14 per 1,000 requests; Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Free to start without a card.
- Grounding with Bing Search, good for Teams already building on Foundry Agent Service who want cited answers from Bing without handling a search key.

| Category | Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore | Grounding with Bing Search |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 90 | 68 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 78 | 68 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 75 | 61 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 85 | 79 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 80 | 80 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 77 | 66 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore | Grounding with Bing Search |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | Microsoft |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://{gateway-id}.gateway.bedrock-agentcore.{region}.amazonaws.com/mcp` | `https://{account}.services.ai.azure.com/api/projects/{project}/openai/v1/responses` |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Price for web search | $7 per 1,000 requests | $14 per 1,000 requests |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the AWS Customer Agreement and Service Terms, with an acceptable-use section on the tool's documentation page | Proprietary service under the customer's Microsoft agreement and the separate Grounding with Bing terms of use, which exclude it from the Microsoft Data Protection Addendum |
| Tools exposed | 1 | 3 |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-19 | 2026-11-02 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2025-11-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-18 | 2026-09-01 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Agent reviews | 3.3/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore +22: Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore 90 (Graded on the hosted lines, for the Gateway endpoint and the connector agents call. AWS Health Dashboard with per-service, per-Region history (20). The dashboard's history file, re-read on 1 November 2026, names AgentCore in one event in the 90 days from 3 August, 2 hours 40 minutes of packet loss in one zone of eu-south-2 on 4 October 2026, marked informational and in a Region where Web Search is not sold. The us-west-2 events of 3 September and 30 October (API Gateway HTTP API) don't name AgentCore. Read as clean, as on the Memory listing (30). Quotas published and re-read on 1 November, 10 Web Search requests a second and 200 tool calls a second per gateway and per account (15). Owner-set gateway rate limits return an error body with `retryAfter` in seconds and searches have no side effects, but the response to the service's own Web Search quota is not documented (10 of 15). The AgentCore FAQ says the Amazon Bedrock SLA applies, but that SLA, last updated 4 October 2023, does not name AgentCore (5 of 10, as on the Code Interpreter listing). Generally available since 16 June 2026 (10).); Grounding with Bing Search 68 (Graded on the hosted lines, for the Foundry Agent Service tools agents call. Azure status page with post-incident reviews and a Foundry Agent Service component (20). The history page read on 6 November lists one review in the 90 days from 8 August that names Foundry Agent Service, intermittent failures and latency in Sweden Central from 10:03 to 15:58 UTC on 29 September 2026. It was one region and partial, and the review doesn't name Grounding with Bing, so minor only, the reading the Azure Translator listing got for the same review (20). The pricing page publishes 150 transactions a second and 1 million a day for each Grounding with Bing resource (15). The web search troubleshooting table says to answer 429 with exponential backoff and retries. No Retry-After or tool-specific overload guidance was found, and searches have no side effects (8 of 15). No SLA naming Grounding with Bing was found. The terms make it a First Party Consumption Service apart from the Online Services terms, and the Online Services SLA document wasn't opened (0). Grounding with Bing Custom Search is marked preview and Grounding with Bing Search is not, but no page read states general availability for it or for the web_search tool, and the .NET SDK is in preview (5 of 10). 20 + 20 + 15 + 8 + 0 + 5 = 68.)
- Agent ergonomics, Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore +14: Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore 75 (One tool with a compact schema, and results are snippets AWS says are extracted for model context. Each result comes as a JSON string in a text block and again as `structuredContent` (22 of 25). `maxResults` 1 to 25, per-request domain include and exclude lists and published-date bounds from 1.2.0. No pagination, offset, country or language controls (15 of 20). JWT failures return 401 or 403 with a `WWW-Authenticate` header naming the scopes, and throttling returns `retryAfter`, but no error codes for the tool itself are documented (10 of 20). Searches only read, so retries are safe apart from the per-query charge. Connector 1.3.0 (19 October 2026, now the default) adds a title and `readOnlyHint: true` and `openWorldHint: true` to `tools/list`, per the connector versions page read on 1 November. No `idempotentHint`, and older pinned targets don't carry the annotations until updated (16 of 20, up from 12 when annotations were unconfirmed). Only `query` is required, and since the default moved from 1.1.0 to 1.3.0 a target created without a version gets the filters. A first call still needs a gateway, a target, a service role and inbound auth. Any MCP client calls it, and set-up runs through AWS SDKs in many languages (12 of 15, up from 10).); Grounding with Bing Search 61 (Read as a server-side search tool inside an agent run. The tools return a model's answer with citations rather than raw results, and `search_context_size` sets how much context web search uses. A caller can't size or inspect the result set itself, since the Bing tools never return their output. Custom Search confines grounding to chosen domains without code (18 of 25). `count`, freshness, market and language filters, and domain restriction through Custom Search. No pagination or offset (13 of 20). Troubleshooting tables give causes and fixes for connection ID, RBAC and 429 problems, but the tools document no error codes (8 of 20). Searches only read, so a retry is safe apart from the per-transaction charge. No MCP annotations are documented for the toolbox's web search tool (10 of 20). The web_search route needs only a project, a model deployment and the Foundry User role. bing_grounding also needs a paid Bing resource and a project connection. SDKs in Python, C#, JavaScript and Java (12 of 15). Prompt caching gets no hits with the Bing tools, because they add a timestamp to every request. 18 + 13 + 8 + 10 + 12 = 61.)
- Transparency & trust, Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore +11: Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore 77 (Closed service under the AWS Customer Agreement and Service Terms, updated 30 October 2026, with an acceptable-use section on the docs page (15 of 30). The docs say queries are served inside AWS and not sent to a third-party engine, the Gateway data protection notes say data is encrypted with a service key or a customer managed key, and section 50.3 of the Service Terms does not list AgentCore for content use. No retention period for queries was found (15 of 30). The connector versions page sets out stages from available to deprecated and retired and promises a migration guide for a major version, without a notice period (12 of 20). A sub-processor list updated 30 October 2026 and a per-Region availability list, and the August release note says queries stay in their Region (18 of 20).); Grounding with Bing Search 66 (Closed service. The terms of use, updated November 2025, are separate from the Online Services terms and sit under the customer's Microsoft agreement (15 of 30). The docs and the terms agree that the Data Protection Addendum and the Product Terms' privacy and security terms don't apply, that Microsoft and the customer are independent controllers, and that the query and parameters leave the Azure compliance and geographic boundary. The terms defer storage and use of query data to the general Microsoft Privacy Statement and state no retention period (15 of 30). The Bing Search APIs retirement was announced on 16 May 2025 for 11 August 2025, under three months' notice, and the web search page marks the Deep Research tool deprecated with a replacement. Microsoft's lifecycle policy covers Azure services, but no deprecation terms for Grounding with Bing were found (10 of 20). Data location for Bing processing isn't stated, and no sub-processor list for it was found (5 of 20). 15 + 15 + 10 + 5 = 45.)
- Schema & documentation, Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore +10: Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore 78 (The tool's `inputSchema` is published in full as JSON Schema, with `query` required, and the Gateway control plane is in AWS's service models (25). The developer guide has an llms.txt of 1,024 lines on 1 November and serves every page as Markdown (10). The page explains purpose, use cases, the two filter layers and how they compose, but says nothing on when another tool fits better (12 of 20). Types are given, but the 200-character limit on `query`, the 1 to 25 range of `maxResults` and the ISO-8601 date format sit in descriptions, with no `maxLength`, `minimum`, `maximum` or `format` (9 of 15). Python, AWS CLI and AgentCore CLI set-up examples and one response example. No error responses for the tool are documented, and the June release note links to a page that now redirects to the guide's front page (7 of 15). Semver connector versions with release dates (1.3.0 on 19 October 2026), a lifecycle table, monthly release notes and dated What's New posts (15).); Grounding with Bing Search 68 (The tools are typed in the official SDKs (BingGroundingTool, BingCustomSearchPreviewTool, WebSearchTool) in Python, C#, JavaScript and Java, and the toolbox exposes web search as an MCP tool. No public OpenAPI description of the Responses tool types was confirmed from the pages read (10 of 25). Microsoft Learn serves each page as Markdown with `accept=text/markdown`, though learn.microsoft.com/llms.txt answers 404 (10). The pages say what each of four web grounding routes is for and when to choose it, when to use Custom Search instead, and not to ask the model to summarise a whole page (17 of 20). Parameters are typed with defaults and limits in prose, `count` 1 to 50 with default 5, freshness values and a date-range form, market and language formats, `search_context_size` low, medium or high (11 of 15). Examples in Python, C#, TypeScript, Java and REST with expected output, and troubleshooting tables for connection ID, authentication and 429 problems, but no error codes or bodies for the tools (10 of 15). Requests carry `api-version=v1` on the toolbox, SDK changelogs are dated and a monthly What's New page lists new articles, the latest for August 2026 (10 of 15). 10 + 10 + 17 + 11 + 10 + 10 = 68.)
- Payments & pricing, Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore +10: Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore 30 (No x402, MPP or L402 on the Gateway or the tool. AgentCore payments is a separate component for an agent paying third parties (0). Per-query price published without a login, $7.00 per 1,000, with a worked example that adds Gateway invocations at $0.005 per 1,000 (20). No Web Search allowance, but new AWS accounts get up to $200 in Free Tier credits and the Free Tier FAQ says most new customers need no payment method, so half, as on the other AWS listings (10). A person signs up in a browser and sets up a gateway, a target and IAM (0).); Grounding with Bing Search 20 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). $14 per 1,000 transactions for Grounding with Bing Search and Custom Search, published on microsoft.com without a login (20). No free tier for Grounding with Bing, and an Azure subscription needs a card, as on the Azure Translator listing (0). A person signs up for Azure, creates a Foundry project and, for bing_grounding, a Bing resource (0).)
- Security & auth, Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore +6: Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore 85 (Gateway inbound auth is OAuth JWT from the owner's identity provider with allowed scopes advertised in the 401 challenge, or IAM SigV4 scoped to one gateway ARN, and the agent never holds a search credential (30). The tool only reads. The owner's target-level include and exclude lists cannot be relaxed by the agent, the service role's `InvokeWebSearch` names one service-owned ARN, and Cedar policies on the gateway can forbid the tool per caller. A no-authorisation gateway mode exists, with AWS's warning against production use (17 of 20). Results are third-party page text and the Web Search pages give no guidance on treating them as untrusted. Gateway guardrail policies can screen inputs for prompt attacks and suppress outputs, documented in general and not for this tool (7 of 15). CloudWatch metrics by method and tool name, and CloudTrail data events for `InvokeGateway` when the owner turns them on, at extra cost (13 of 15). A vulnerability disclosure programme on HackerOne, a security.txt that expires on 16 October 2027 (re-read on 1 November), and SOC and ISO 27001 among the programmes the AgentCore FAQ lists. No paid bounty found, so 2 held back as on every AWS listing (18 of 20).); Grounding with Bing Search 79 (Callers authenticate to the Foundry project with Microsoft Entra ID tokens and RBAC roles (Foundry User to run agents, Foundry Project Manager to add connections), with just-in-time Contributor through Entra PIM for provisioning. The Bing resource key sits in a project connection and the agent never holds it. No key in a URL (28 of 30). The tools only read. Custom Search confines grounding to configured public domains, and an admin can turn web search off for a whole subscription. There is no per-agent read-only toggle to set, since the tools have no write path (15 of 20). The web search page tells developers to treat web search results as untrusted input and to keep secrets and personal data out of prompts, and the tool best practices page says the same of all tool outputs. Raw results are not passed back to the caller (10 of 15). Run steps show each tool call and the Bing query sent, and Azure's activity log covers resource changes. No per-query audit log for Bing was found (10 of 15). Microsoft runs a coordinated vulnerability disclosure policy and bounty programmes through MSRC. microsoft.com's security.txt passed its Expires date on 23 September 2026 and still carries it on 6 November, and the Azure compliance attestations are not shown to cover a service whose data leaves the compliance boundary (16 of 20). 28 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 16 = 79.)