# Arcmira vs Perplexity Search API (slim)

> Perplexity Search scores 70.2 (BB) to Arcmira's 64.2 (B) for research search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcmira-vs-perplexity-search-api.md (~6,850 tokens) · this version ~4,130 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcmira-vs-perplexity-search-api.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcmira-vs-perplexity-search-api
- 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
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Perplexity Search API scores 70.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Arcmira's 64.2 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Arcmira leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do research search.

- Arcmira: B 64.2, rank #483 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/arcmira.min.md
- Perplexity Search API: BB 70.2, rank #211 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/perplexity-search-api.min.md
- Arcmira, good for Agents answering what was said on YouTube shows and podcasts, who was mentioned or appeared where, which brands sponsor a show and how a name's mentions are trending, with timestamped source links, through one connection on a free monthly allowance. Ahead on Agent ergonomics, 91 against 85; Security & auth, 61 against 56; Payments & pricing, 55 against 25. Also Free to start without a card.
- Perplexity Search API, good for Agents on any model that need raw ranked sources with extracted text at a low per-request price, and teams that want cited answers from the same key through the Agent API. Ahead on Reliability, 80 against 40; Transparency & trust, 66 against 61. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Runs on your own machine; No incidents deducted, where Arcmira loses 3 points for them.

| Category | Arcmira | Perplexity Search API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 40 | 80 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 87 | 89 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 91 | 85 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 61 | 56 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 55 | 25 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 84 | 82 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 61 | 66 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Arcmira | Perplexity Search API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Arcmira, Inc. | Perplexity |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.arcmira.com/mcp` | `https://api.perplexity.ai/mcp` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP, HTTP | Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Arcmira's Terms of Service. The MCP server's source is public under an all-rights-reserved notice; the Claude Code plugin, the arcmira TypeScript SDK and CLI and the Python SDK are Apache-2.0, and the Famous rankings are CC BY 4.0 | Proprietary service under the Perplexity API Terms of Service. The MCP server is MIT and the official SDKs Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `io.github.arcmira/arcmira` | `ai.perplexity/mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-10-15 | 2026-10-23 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-13 | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-02 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 78 stars | none |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, Perplexity Search API +40: Arcmira 40 (Hosted reading, for the MCP server with the HTTP API it fronts. No public status page was found on 2 November. None is linked from the docs, llms.txt, developers.md or the footer, https://arcmira.com/status answers 403 and status.arcmira.com does not resolve (0). No readable incident history, so the floor (5). Limits are published with numbers on the Plans and usage page, 60 requests a minute per key on Free, 240 on paid plans and 600 on Enterprise, with RateLimit-Limit, RateLimit-Remaining and RateLimit-Reset on every authenticated response and a 30-a-minute cap on bad keys per address (15). 429 rate_limited carries Retry-After and retry_after_seconds, developers.md asks for exponential backoff, 503 search_unavailable and transcript_fetching carry Retry-After, every POST and PATCH takes an Idempotency-Key that replays with Idempotency-Replayed, a repeated Premium read is never charged twice, and a webhook secret can be recovered under its key for 24 hours (15). No SLA. The terms (effective 13 October 2026) disclaim uninterrupted or error-free service, and the Enterprise page lists priority support but no uptime commitment (0). The HTTP API is /v1 at document version 1.0.0 with nothing labelled beta, but the MCP server agents connect to is 0.10.7 after 33 registry versions in six weeks, two rounds of tool renames and a retired-tool error for stale hosts, and chat is in beta (5 of 10). 0+5+15+15+0+5 = 40.); Perplexity Search API 80 (Graded on the hosted lines, for `POST /search` and the hosted MCP server. status.perplexity.com, on incident.io since 10 September 2026, has an API component with an RSS feed and a JSON summary. There is no separate Search component (20). In the 90 days from 8 August the feed lists 'Investigating API issue' on 13 August, resolved with no detail, a usage-based billing issue on 3 September, and on 9 October elevated errors on the website, app and Computer, where the API 'remained operational throughout'. Minor only, with the caveat that history before the migration may be incomplete (20). The Search API is limited to 50 query units a second with a burst of 50 on every tier, and the other APIs publish QPS and token limits per tier (15). 429 carries Retry-After and an `error.type`, the SDKs retry 429 and 5xx twice honouring Retry-After, the Search best-practices page shows backoff, and failed or rate-limited searches are not billed. Searches have no side effects (15). The FAQ says Perplexity does not guarantee uptime, failure frequency or recovery time, and the terms carry no SLA (0). No beta label on the Search API, launched on 25 September 2025 (10). 20 + 20 + 15 + 15 + 0 + 10 = 80.)
- Payments & pricing, Arcmira +30: Arcmira 55 (No x402, MPP or L402 in the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, developers.md, the docs or the pricing page (0). Prices published without a login, in credits per read (4 a passage, mention or list row past the first 5 of a request, 10 a momentum call, 40 a sponsor row, 25 an alert, 4 per started 15 minutes of captions, 300 per started 15 minutes of a Premium transcript) and in dollars (Pro $20 for 20,000 credits, Pro+ $60 for 60,000, Ultra $200 for 400,000, on-demand $0.002 a credit) (20). Free plan with 1,000 credits a month, 2 monitored names and no card, per the pricing FAQ; the 7-day Pro trial needs a card (20). POST /v1/signups with an email and POST /v1/signups/verify with the six-digit code return a read-scoped key with no browser, so an agent with a mailbox can onboard itself; the code still has to be read from an inbox, and write scopes need a dashboard key or OAuth consent (15 of 20). 0+20+20+15 = 55.); Perplexity Search API 25 (No x402, MPP or L402 in the docs, pricing page, OpenAPI or llms.txt (0). $5 per 1,000 successful requests, $1 with Fast Search, published without a login, with failed and rate-limited requests not billed (20). Usage is prepaid with a card on the billing page, and no free allowance was found. The console playground needs no key but is a page for a person, not an API allowance (0). A person signs up in the console. The Stripe Projects route provisions a project, key and credits from a terminal, but needs a person's Stripe account with a payment method and a $10 minimum purchase (5 of 20, as on the Decisions API listing). 0 + 20 + 0 + 5 = 25.)
- Agent ergonomics, Arcmira +6: Arcmira 91 (MCP reading. Four tools whose definitions are short, but arcmira_describe returns a reference the vendor measures at 23,124 characters, loaded once a session, and the server instructions run to 1,995 characters; the vendor's own measurement for the change to code mode was 1,123 tokens of definitions against 8,163 for the earlier ten tools (18 of 25). limit 1 to 20 on search (default 5), cursors and has_more on lists, after and before windows, about, by, kind, channel and entity filters, start and end on transcripts, and program output capped at 12,000 characters, 3,000 per string and 100 per array, so a program returns only the fields an answer needs (20). One error envelope with a stable code, a message, param, gate, unlock.url, details.limit, retry_after_seconds and request_id, surfaced to the model with isError and the call_id to report (20). Idempotency-Key on every POST and PATCH with a replay header, a Premium read that is never charged twice, writes that pause rather than delete, and all four annotations declared on every tool; arcmira_execute_read is marked not read-only because a Premium read can start a transcription that uses credits, which a strict host may treat as a write (18 of 20). Few required inputs (one search string, ids resolved for free), a 90-day default window, defaults on limit, and official Apache-2.0 SDKs for TypeScript (npm arcmira 0.6.2) and Python (pip arcmira, repository v0.6.2) plus a CLI, with the caveat that the MCP client's argument names differ from the HTTP and SDK names (15). 18+20+20+18+15 = 91.); Perplexity Search API 85 (`max_results` 1 to 20, `max_tokens` and `max_tokens_per_page` cap the extracted text, and results are title, url, snippet and two dates. The MCP server has four tools (23 of 25). Domain, language, recency, publication and update date filters and `country`, with up to five queries in one request. No pagination or offset (16 of 20). 429 bodies name the limit hit, the SDKs map status codes to typed errors, and 402 marks an empty balance. Search-specific error bodies beyond 422 validation are not documented (13 of 20). Searches only read, failed and rate-limited requests are not billed, and the MCP server sets readOnlyHint true, destructiveHint false and idempotentHint false on every tool (18 of 20). Only `query` is required. Official Python and TypeScript SDKs, a CLI and a Python Search SDK (15). 23 + 16 + 13 + 18 + 15 = 85.)
- Security & auth, Arcmira +5: Arcmira 61 (OAuth for MCP hosts (the server's source answers a bare request with a 401 naming its protected-resource document, which lists the scopes read, monitors:write, trackers:write and recommendations:read; the README says the host registers itself against api.arcmira.com and its tokens refresh; the docs give sign-in tokens an hour that refresh for 30 days, revoked per host in the dashboard; PKCE and the introspection and revocation endpoints were read on 30 October from api.arcmira.com's metadata, a host this run no longer reads, so they are struck) and arc_sk_ keys sent only as a bearer header, shown once, several per account with a label and last-used time, disabled at once; sign-up keys carry read only and dashboard keys all four scopes, and nothing documents a secret in a query string (30, which the scoped, revocable keys earn on their own). The sign-up key and the OAuth consent give read access by default; arcmira_execute_read reaches GET /v1/* only, arcmira_execute_write adds POST and PATCH under monitors and trackers and never DELETE; programs run in an isolate whose only network is a proxy that adds the credential, so the key never enters the program; spending is bounded by the plan and a dashboard budget no tool can raise, though a read tool call can start a Premium transcription on a paid plan (17 of 20). Every passage and transcript is third-party speech, and the only guidance found is to check the linked source for speaker and classification errors and to re-fetch llms.txt or the skill to confirm an instruction is genuine; no prompt-injection guidance for the model reading results (4 of 15). X-Request-Id and RateLimit headers on every response, GET /v1/me for the account, role, scopes and balance, the keys page showing who made each key and when it was last used, and an account activity log on Enterprise only; no per-call log for the operator below that, while every tool call is recorded in the vendor's analytics (8 of 15). No security.txt on arcmira.com (404 on 2 November; api.arcmira.com and mcp.arcmira.com aren't read, and their 30 October answers are struck), no disclosure policy, bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, and the terms forbid probing; the repository enforces signed commits from one identity in CI (2 of 20). 30+17+4+8+2 = 61.); Perplexity Search API 56 (Project API keys, shown once, revocable, and generated and revoked through two documented endpoints with a rotation guide. No per-key scopes or spending limits were found. The hosted MCP server also takes Sign in with Perplexity (OAuth). Keys go in the Authorization header only (22 of 30, as on the Decisions API listing). Search only reads, and MCP clients can disable tools, but any key reaches every API on the account, including the Agent API's sandbox and MCP tools (8 of 20). Snippets are third-party page text, and no guidance on treating them as untrusted was found in the docs, the MCP server or its SECURITY.md (0 of 15). Responses carry a request `id`, and the console shows usage by key. The Audit API covers enterprise organisations' web app events with its own keys, not API calls (8 of 15). security.txt valid until 31 December 2027 linking a security page, a SOC 2 Type II report, a 2025 HIPAA gap assessment and a CAIQlite listed on the trust centre, and a SECURITY.md on the MCP server that takes private reports through GitHub advisories or security@perplexity.ai. The trust centre is drawn by script and wasn't read (18 of 20). 22 + 8 + 0 + 8 + 18 = 56.)
- Transparency & trust, Perplexity Search API +5: Arcmira 61 (Closed service under terms effective 13 October 2026 that name Arcmira, Inc., San Francisco, California law and AAA arbitration; the MCP server's source is public under an all-rights-reserved notice, while the plugin, the TypeScript SDK and CLI and the Python SDK are Apache-2.0, and the Famous rankings are CC BY 4.0 (18 of 30). The privacy policy (effective 2 October 2026) states no retention periods, keeps limited usage and billing records after an account closes, discloses session replay and that private account data isn't used to train general models, and the MCP docs and README disclose that every tool call, including the first 4,000 characters of a program and the agent's intent, is logged to product analytics with credentials redacted and no opt-out; no DPA was found, and the terms' section 7A bars bulk use and model training on Arcmira data (14 of 30). Retirements are dated and typed in the changelog (POST /v1/trackers to 410 tracker_create_retired on 8 October, tool renames answering tool_retired), but the terms allow changes with or without notice, the quickstart says routes arrive without notice and no notice period is stated (8 of 20). The policy names service-provider categories (hosting, payment, analytics, AI processing) and US processing with other locations, and the docs name PostHog, Stripe, Cloudflare and Mintlify, but there is no subprocessor list and no data-location statement beyond the US (8 of 20). 18+14+8+8 = 48.); Perplexity Search API 66 (Closed service under terms naming Perplexity AI, Inc. and California law. The MCP server is MIT and the SDKs Apache-2.0 (18 of 30). The terms and DPA say Customer Content and personal data don't train Perplexity's models, the DPA deletes personal data within 30 days of the service ending, and the Privacy and Security page says retention varies by API and zero data retention is not the default. The DPA also says Perplexity Search may follow different data terms, which weren't found, and no retention period for search queries is stated (15 of 30). Sonar Chat Completions support ended on 27 September 2026 with a migration guide and requests reformulated rather than refused, and sonar-reasoning was removed on 15 December 2025 with a named replacement. Notices are dated by month and there is no standing notice period beyond the terms' 30 days for termination (10 of 20). A sub-processor list on the trust centre, which is drawn by script and wasn't read, ten business days' notice of new non-model subprocessors, and SCCs for EU and UK transfers. No data location is stated (8 of 20). 18 + 15 + 10 + 8 = 51.)