Head to head · Research search · October 2026 research run

Arcmira vs You.com APIs

You.com APIs scores 75.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Arcmira's 64.2 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Arcmira leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do research search.

Best web search APIs for AI agents · All 182 search comparisons

Which one, for what

Arcmira B

Best 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

  • Schema & documentation, 87 against 82
  • Agent ergonomics, 91 against 81

Watch for

No status page, incident history or SLA was found; the terms disclaim uninterrupted service and Enterprise lists priority support without an uptime commitment

You.com APIs BB

Best for An unattended agent that needs search, page text and cited answers and wants to pay per call without an account.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 80 against 40
  • Payments & pricing, 88 against 55

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Runs on your own machine
  • No incidents deducted, where Arcmira loses 3 points for them

Watch for

Two API hosts. Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runArcmiraYou.com APIsEdge
Reliability16%204080You.com APIs +40
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28782Arcmira +5
Agent ergonomics13%16.29181Arcmira +10
Security & auth14%17.56157Arcmira +4
Payments & pricing10%12.55588You.com APIs +33
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88482Arcmira +2
Transparency & trust7%8.86160Arcmira +1
Negative events≤15-30
TotalB 64.2/100BB 75.9/100

Facts side by side

FactArcmiraYou.com APIs
KindMCP serverHTTP API
VendorArcmira, Inc.You.com
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.arcmira.com/mcphttps://api.you.com/v1/search
TransportsStreamable HTTP, HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
Price for research searchnot published$50 per 1,000 requests
x402nopayer tooling only
LicenceProprietary 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 4.0none
Tools exposed46
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryio.github.arcmira/arcmiraio.github.youdotcom-oss/mcp
Last release2026-10-152026-10-14
Terms last updated2026-10-132024-08-27
Privacy policy last updated2026-10-022026-09-22
Customer content may train modelsyesyes
Terms restrict automated accessyesyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyesyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesyes
Popularity78 stars4.4k npm/wk, 92k PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone3.8/5 (8)

Verdicts

Arcmira

Four code-mode tools over a documented v1 API, OAuth 2.1 with four scopes, a read-only sign-up key from two API calls and no card, and a 1,000-credit free month. No status page, SLA or security.txt, breaking v1 changes shipped in October with same-day notice, the server is at 0.10.7, and the index covers the shows Arcmira transcribes.

You.com APIs

x402 and MPP on Web Search and Finance Research, with no account needed. Two API hosts. Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io.

Before you call either

Arcmira

  1. Call arcmira_describe once per session and write one program per question for arcmira_execute_read; return only the fields the answer needs, since output is cut at 12,000 characters and 3,000 per string.
  2. Resolve names with arcmira.resolve (free) before any about, by, entity_ids or channel filter; a name in a filter fails with id_required. Plain keyword search needs no resolver call.
  3. Check arcmira.status() or GET /v1/me for the plan, scopes and usage.credits.available before metered reads; on Free, media newer than 30 days and pages past the first fail with freshness_requires_paid and pagination_gated.
  4. A Premium read of an untranscribed video starts a transcription that uses credits (300 per started 15 minutes) and may return pending; read the same video again later, which is never charged twice, and send retry: true only when the user asks.
  5. Over HTTP send Authorization: Bearer arc_sk_..., an Idempotency-Key on every POST and PATCH, honour Retry-After on 429, and switch on error.code, following unlock.url on 402 and 403 rather than re-authenticating.
  6. Use arcmira_execute_write only after listing the user's monitors; it creates, follows and pauses but never deletes, and a connection made before server 0.9.0 answers insufficient_scope until reconnected.

You.com APIs

  1. For unattended runs call GET https://api.you.com/v1/search, handle the 402 and pay with x402. It's half the MPP price for search
  2. Use https://api.you.com/mcp?profile=free to try search with no key (100 queries a day)
  3. Send Answer, Research and Finance Research to api.you.com. On ydc-index.io they fail with 'Missing Authentication Token'
  4. Pass ?tools= with only the tools you need to keep the MCP tool list short
  5. With Python SDK 3.6.0 or later, pass knowledge=None, extraction=None on search unless you want highlights and knowledge cards, which are now on by default and may cost more

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Arcmira or You.com APIs?

You.com APIs scores 75.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Arcmira's 64.2 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Arcmira leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics.

Do Arcmira and You.com APIs need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Arcmira and You.com APIs without installing anything?

Yes. Arcmira has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.arcmira.com/mcp and You.com APIs at https://api.you.com/v1/search.

Other comparisons with Arcmira or You.com APIs

Machine-readable

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