# Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore vs NewsCatcher (slim)

> Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore scores 75.2 (BB) to NewsCatcher's 67.5 (B) for web search. NewsCatcher is cheaper for web search, $1 against $7 per 1,000 requests. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-web-search-vs-newscatcher.md (~6,000 tokens) · this version ~3,130 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-web-search-vs-newscatcher.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-web-search-vs-newscatcher
- 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 NewsCatcher's 67.5 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. NewsCatcher leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do web search. NewsCatcher is cheaper for web search, $1 against $7 per 1,000 requests.

- Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore: BB 75.2, rank #70 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agentcore-web-search.min.md
- NewsCatcher: B 67.5, rank #322 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/newscatcher.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 67; Security & auth, 85 against 45. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Free to start without a card.
- NewsCatcher, good for Agents that need current news across languages, grouped into stories, or tables of events and company news on a schedule. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 94 against 78; Agent ergonomics, 84 against 75. Also Cheaper for web search, $1 against $7 per 1,000 requests.

| Category | Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore | NewsCatcher |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 90 | 67 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 78 | 94 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 75 | 84 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 85 | 45 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 30 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 80 | 76 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 77 | 79 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore | NewsCatcher |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | NewsCatcher, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://{gateway-id}.gateway.bedrock-agentcore.{region}.amazonaws.com/mcp` | `https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp` |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Price for web search | $7 per 1,000 requests | $1 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 | none |
| Tools exposed | 1 | 15 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-19 | 2026-11-06 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2026-11-02 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-18 | 2026-11-02 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Agent reviews | 3.3/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- Security & auth, Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore +40: 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).); NewsCatcher 45 (API keys in the `x-api-key` header, several per account, revocable in the platform, with advice to keep one per application. A 403 for 'a key that may not use this API' suggests per-key API access, but no scopes are documented (20). The MCP server documents `?apiKey=` on the server URL for Claude.ai custom connectors, with a warning, so less 10 (10 of 30). The MCP repository's SECURITY.md says URL keys are rejected unless the operator enables them, which the hosted server does per the docs. Toolsets let an operator load only the read-only `news` tools, write tools carry destructiveHint, and the server tells the assistant to confirm large or hourly agent jobs (14 of 20). Results are third-party article text and summaries, and no prompt-injection guidance was found in the docs or the MCP server's instructions (0 of 15). Every response carries a Correlation-ID, `GET /subscription` shows usage and balance, and runs are listed in the platform. No per-call audit log for the customer was found (7 of 15). The security page and footer claim SOC 2 Type II and link a trust centre on Oneleet, which wasn't read. A vulnerability disclosure policy covers the MCP server. No security.txt (404) and no bug bounty found (14 of 20). 10 + 14 + 0 + 7 + 14 = 45.)
- Reliability, Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore +23: 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).); NewsCatcher 67 (Read with the hosted lines, for the News API, the agent and the hosted MCP server. status.newscatcherapi.com (Hyperping) shows one News API component with 99.820% uptime from August to November 2026 and an incident history. The agent and the MCP server have no component of their own (20). In the 90 days from 8 August, one incident, on 1 September 2026, when the vendor wrote that for about four hours a higher-than-usual number of requests to the production News API timed out because of one client's queries. Read as one major (10). Rate limits published per plan, 1 request a second free and up to 10 on pay as you go, with exact limits from the free `GET /subscription` (15). 429 carries Retry-After with instructions to retry the same request, 503 carries Retry-After, and failed or refused requests are not charged. Agent runs and monitor creation have no idempotency keys (12 of 15). An uptime SLA exists only in signed Enterprise agreements; none is published (0). Generally available since 30 October 2026, with OAuth for the MCP server announced as coming soon (10). 20 + 10 + 15 + 12 + 0 + 10 = 67.)
- Schema & documentation, NewsCatcher +16: 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).); NewsCatcher 94 (OpenAPI 3.1 for the News API (version 1.3.9, 4 paths) and the agent (version 1.5.1, 33 paths), linked from llms.txt, and typed JSON Schema on every MCP tool through Pydantic (25). llms.txt, a Markdown copy of every page and a docs MCP server (10). MCP tool descriptions say when to use each and which tool to use instead, such as `list_articles` for older news; the REST reference explains each endpoint and the 'Choose an API' page compares them (17 of 20). Inputs are typed with enums for effort, mode and dimensions, length and range limits such as a 500-character query and limit 1 to 100, and required fields marked (13 of 15). Runnable examples in curl, Python and JavaScript, and an error table with retry advice for every status. The agent spec carries no response examples (14 of 15). Versioned APIs with a dated changelog, the latest entries on 4 November 2026, and separate changelogs for the v3 News API and CatchAll (15). 25 + 10 + 17 + 13 + 14 + 15 = 94.)
- Agent ergonomics, NewsCatcher +9: 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).); NewsCatcher 84 (15 MCP tools in four toolsets, chosen per connection with `?tools=`, and tools return compact text rather than the full JSON. 15 for 11 to 30 tools plus 7 for toolsets (22 of 25). `limit`, `search_window`, effort, language, country, publisher, coverage and content-type filters, sorting, and paging on `/articles`; agent tables come back up to 200 rows at a time over MCP (20). Every status is documented with whether to retry; the agent returns stable `code` values, while the News API body has a `status_code` and a message meant for people (17 of 20). Every tool carries readOnlyHint and idempotentHint, writes carry destructiveHint, `start_research` has a free `dry_run`, and refused or failed calls aren't charged. No idempotency key for starting runs (17 of 20). Only `q` is required, with medium effort and a 7-day window as defaults. No official SDK for the current API was found; the docs show raw HTTP in three languages (8 of 15). 22 + 20 + 17 + 17 + 8 = 84.)