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
| Category | Weight this run | Arcmira | You.com APIs | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 40 | 80 | You.com APIs +40 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 87 | 82 | Arcmira +5 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 91 | 81 | Arcmira +10 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 61 | 57 | Arcmira +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 55 | 88 | You.com APIs +33 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 84 | 82 | Arcmira +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 61 | 60 | Arcmira +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| Total | B 64.2/100 | BB 75.9/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Arcmira | You.com APIs |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Arcmira, Inc. | You.com |
| Hosted endpoint | https://mcp.arcmira.com/mcp | https://api.you.com/v1/search |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP, HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for research search | not published | $50 per 1,000 requests |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| 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 | none |
| Tools exposed | 4 | 6 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | io.github.arcmira/arcmira | io.github.youdotcom-oss/mcp |
| Last release | 2026-10-15 | 2026-10-14 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-13 | 2024-08-27 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-02 | 2026-09-22 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 78 stars | 4.4k npm/wk, 92k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.8/5 (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
- Call
arcmira_describeonce per session and write one program per question forarcmira_execute_read; return only the fields the answer needs, since output is cut at 12,000 characters and 3,000 per string. - Resolve names with
arcmira.resolve(free) before anyabout,by,entity_idsorchannelfilter; a name in a filter fails withid_required. Plain keyword search needs no resolver call. - Check
arcmira.status()or GET /v1/me for the plan, scopes andusage.credits.availablebefore metered reads; on Free, media newer than 30 days and pages past the first fail withfreshness_requires_paidandpagination_gated. - 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 sendretry: trueonly when the user asks. - Over HTTP send
Authorization: Bearer arc_sk_..., anIdempotency-Keyon every POST and PATCH, honourRetry-Afteron 429, and switch onerror.code, followingunlock.urlon 402 and 403 rather than re-authenticating. - Use
arcmira_execute_writeonly after listing the user's monitors; it creates, follows and pauses but never deletes, and a connection made before server 0.9.0 answersinsufficient_scopeuntil reconnected.
You.com APIs
- 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
- Use
https://api.you.com/mcp?profile=freeto try search with no key (100 queries a day) - Send Answer, Research and Finance Research to api.you.com. On ydc-index.io they fail with 'Missing Authentication Token'
- Pass
?tools=with only the tools you need to keep the MCP tool list short - With Python SDK 3.6.0 or later, pass
knowledge=None, extraction=Noneon 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.
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/arcmira-vs-you-com-api.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/arcmira.json·/api/v1/tools/you-com-api.json - From a terminal
anchor compare arcmira you-com-api(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "arcmira", "b": "you-com-api"}at/mcp, no key