{ "data": { "a": { "slug": "bing-grounding", "name": "Grounding with Bing Search", "vendor": "Microsoft", "vendorUrl": "https://www.microsoft.com/bing/apis", "kind": "http-api", "category": "search", "summary": "Grounding with Bing Search is Microsoft's web search tool for agents in Foundry Agent Service. A Foundry model searches Bing during a Responses API run and returns an answer with URL citations, through the bing_grounding and web_search tools.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bing-grounding", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bing-grounding.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bing-grounding.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/bing-grounding.json", "dns": "bing-grounding.grade.anchorterminal.com", "license": "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", "transports": [ "streamable-http" ], "remoteUrl": "https://{account}.services.ai.azure.com/api/projects/{project}/openai/v1/responses", "packages": [ { "registry": "pypi", "name": "azure-ai-projects" }, { "registry": "npm", "name": "@azure/ai-projects" } ], "auth": "oauth", "authNotes": "Microsoft Entra ID bearer token for the Foundry project (scope https://ai.azure.com/.default, for example through DefaultAzureCredential), with the Foundry User role to create and run agents. The bing_grounding tool also needs a Grounding with Bing resource whose key is stored in a project connection, created by someone with Contributor and Foundry Project Manager. The agent never holds the Bing key. The web_search tool needs no Bing resource or connection.", "pricing": "usage", "pricingNotes": "$14 per 1,000 transactions for Grounding with Bing Search and for Grounding with Bing Custom Search, counted as tool calls per run, plus the model deployment's token charges. No free tier found. An Azure subscription and a person's signup are needed first.", "priceSummary": "$14 / 1k req", "where": "hosted", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "No x402, MPP or L402 on the Foundry web search and Bing tools pages, the Grounding with Bing pricing page or the terms of use (checked 2026-11-06). Billing runs through the Azure subscription.", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": 3, "popularity": { "githubStars": null, "npmWeekly": null, "pypiWeekly": null, "asOf": "2026-11-06" }, "docsUrl": "https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/agents/how-to/tools/web-search", "capabilities": [ "web.search", "search.answer" ], "tags": [ "hosted", "usage-priced", "closed-source", "enterprise", "card-required", "status-page", "python", "typescript" ], "lastRelease": "2026-11-02", "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 63.7, "grade": "B", "agentReady": false, "rank": 504, "ranked": true, "rankOf": 1510, "categoryRank": 15, "methodology": "0.7", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 61, "maintenance": 80, "payments": 20, "reliability": 68, "schema": 68, "security": 79, "transparency": 66 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "medium", "date": "2026-11-06" }, "negative": 0, "verdict": "First-party Bing grounding inside Foundry Agent Service, called with Entra ID so the agent never holds a search key, at a published $14 per 1,000 transactions. The tools return a model's answer with citations, never the raw results, and data sent to them falls outside Microsoft's Data Protection Addendum and Azure's compliance boundary.", "bestFor": "Teams already building on Foundry Agent Service who want cited answers from Bing without handling a search key.", "strengths": [ "Callers authenticate with Microsoft Entra ID and Foundry RBAC roles, and the Bing resource key stays in a project connection", "Price and limits published without a login, $14 per 1,000 transactions, 150 a second and 1 million a day", "Count, freshness, market and language parameters, and a Custom Search variant that limits grounding to chosen domains", "Docs say to treat web search results as untrusted input, and admins can turn web search off for a whole subscription" ], "weaknesses": [ "The Bing tools never return raw results to developers, only a model-written answer with citation links", "The Data Protection Addendum does not apply and query data leaves the Azure compliance and geographic boundary", "No free tier, and a first call needs an Azure subscription, a Foundry project, a model deployment and, for bing_grounding, a paid Bing resource", "Terms forbid using Bing output to train or evaluate AI models and limit storing or caching it" ], "agentNotes": [ "Use the citations in the response annotations as the sources; the tool output itself is not returned, and the terms require showing the URLs and the Bing query link", "Expect each run to bill one transaction per tool call at $14 per 1,000, plus model tokens, and set count and freshness in the tool configuration", "Treat cited page text as untrusted input and don't put secrets or personal data in prompts, since queries leave the Azure compliance boundary", "On 429 back off exponentially; no Retry-After header is documented for the tool" ], "metrics": { "kind": "remote", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 0, "avgRating": 0, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "medium", "grade": "B", "methodology": "0.7", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 63.7 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 61, "maintenance": 80, "payments": 20, "reliability": 68, "schema": 68, "security": 79, "transparency": 45 }, "provenanceScore": 87, "checked": { "categories": { "ergonomics": "2026-11-06", "maintenance": "2026-11-06", "payments": "2026-11-06", "reliability": "2026-11-06", "schema": "2026-11-06", "security": "2026-11-06", "transparency": "2026-11-06" }, "last": "2026-11-06", "oldest": "2026-11-06", "stale": false, "staleAfterDays": 90 } }, "connect": { "install": "pip install azure-ai-projects azure-identity", "http": "curl -X POST \"$FOUNDRY_PROJECT_ENDPOINT/openai/v1/responses\" \\\n -H \"Authorization: Bearer $AGENT_TOKEN\" \\\n -H \"Content-Type: application/json\" \\\n -d '{\"model\":\"'$FOUNDRY_MODEL_DEPLOYMENT_NAME'\",\"input\":\"How does Wikipedia explain Euler identity?\",\"tool_choice\":\"required\",\"tools\":[{\"type\":\"bing_grounding\",\"bing_grounding\":{\"search_configurations\":[{\"project_connection_id\":\"'$BING_PROJECT_CONNECTION_ID'\",\"count\":7,\"market\":\"en-US\",\"set_lang\":\"en\",\"freshness\":\"week\"}]}}]}'" }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/web.search", "tool": "https://letme.dev/bing-grounding" }, "sameCompany": [ "azure-openai", "azure-foundry-fine-tuning", "azure-ai-content-safety", "azure-speech-to-text", "azure-text-to-speech", "microsoft-agent-framework", "microsoft-execution-containers", "microsoft-entra-agent-id", "azure-key-vault", "azure-document-intelligence", "azure-devops-mcp", "microsoft-learn-mcp", "tokeneconomizer", "playwright-mcp", "azure-mcp", "azure-maps", "azure-translator", "microsoft-graph-calendar", "azure-blob-storage", "onedrive-sharepoint", "microsoft-teams", "dynamics-365-sales", "copilot-studio-mcp", "power-automate", "foundry-local", "microsoft-decision-1", "microsoft-advertising-api", "microsoft-excel-graph", "outlook-mail-graph", "microsoft-graph-people", "mage-vl-cowork" ], "area": "web-data", "unitPrices": [ { "item": "Grounding with Bing Search transaction", "unit": "1k-requests", "usd": 14, "note": "Counted as tool calls per run, plus the model deployment's token charges" }, { "item": "Grounding with Bing Custom Search transaction", "unit": "1k-requests", "usd": 14, "note": "Same limits, 150 a second and 1 million a day" } ], "provenance": { "legalEntity": "Microsoft Corporation", "domain": "microsoft.com", "domainRegistered": "1991-05-02", "endpointOnVendorDomain": true, "terms": "https://www.microsoft.com/bing/apis/grounding-legal-enterprise", "privacy": "https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement", "statusPage": "https://azure.status.microsoft/en-us/status", "changelog": "https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/whats-new-foundry", "securityTxt": "expired", "checked": "2026-11-06", "notes": [ "The Foundry project endpoint is on services.ai.azure.com, a Microsoft domain. Domain registration date carried from the Azure listings' provenance.", "The Grounding with Bing terms of use (updated November 2025) are subject to the customer's Microsoft agreement (MCA, MBSA or MOSA) and name no separate contracting entity. They forbid using output on sites that block the customer's crawler, using links for crawling or scraping, and bypassing transaction limits.", "www.microsoft.com/.well-known/security.txt still carries Expires 2026-09-23T16:00:00.000Z on 6 November 2026.", "learn.microsoft.com/robots.txt allows the documentation paths read. The Azure status history page lists post-incident reviews for five years." ], "score": 87 }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bing-grounding.json", "live": { "slug": "bing-grounding", "probe": { "target": "https://{account}.services.ai.azure.com/api/projects/{project}/openai/v1/responses", "method": "get", "lastAt": "2026-11-07T23:26:21.563644602Z", "lastOk": false, "lastStatus": 0, "lastMs": 0, "lastNote": "invalid character \"{\" in host name", "authRequired": false, "uptime24h": 0, "uptime30d": 0, "p50ms24h": 0, "p95ms24h": 0, "samples24h": 243, "samples30d": 251, "days": [ { "date": "2026-11-06", "probes": 13, "ok": 0 }, { "date": "2026-11-07", "probes": 238, "ok": 0 } ], "outages": [ { "start": "2026-11-06T22:45:07.390416052Z", "end": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "note": "invalid character \"{\" in host name" } ] }, "versions": [ { "registry": "npm", "name": "@azure/ai-projects", "version": "2.10.0", "seenAt": "2026-11-06T23:11:06.900508365Z" }, { "registry": "pypi", "name": "azure-ai-projects", "version": "2.10.0", "released": "2026-10-30", "seenAt": "2026-11-06T23:11:05.00335007Z" } ], "npmWeekly": 1368538, "pypiWeekly": 1896178, "securityTxt": { "url": "https://microsoft.com/.well-known/security.txt", "state": "valid", "expires": "2027-10-27T16:00:00.000Z", "checkedAt": "2026-11-07T16:02:01.196666056Z" }, "pages": [ { "url": "https://www.microsoft.com/bing/apis/grounding-legal-enterprise", "kind": "terms", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-11-07T14:31:40.128456318Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "fingerprint": "ddf25722851a" } ], "updatedAt": "2026-11-07T23:26:21.563644602Z" } }, "answer": "Grounding with Bing Search scores 63.7 (B) on agent readiness against Liner Search MCP's 43.4 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.", "b": { "slug": "liner-mcp", "name": "Liner Search MCP", "vendor": "Liner", "vendorUrl": "https://liner.com", "kind": "mcp", "category": "search", "summary": "Liner Search MCP is a hosted server with web, scholarly, legal, finance, medical and business search tools and three agent tools for quick cited answers, search answers and deep research reports, over OAuth 2.1 or an API key.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/liner-mcp", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/liner-mcp.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/liner-mcp.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/liner-mcp.json", "dns": "liner-mcp.grade.anchorterminal.com", "transports": [ "streamable-http" ], "remoteUrl": "https://platform.liner.com/api/v1/mcp", "packages": [], "auth": "oauth", "authNotes": "OAuth 2.1 sign-in in a browser, or a Bearer token with a Liner API key (LINER_API_KEY) for CI and headless use.", "pricing": "paid", "pricingNotes": "Search and Agent APIs are billed per call. Web search, scholar search and visualisation $1 per 1,000 requests; Quick Answer Agent $3 per 1,000 requests; the other agents' prices weren't readable. No free allowance found (checked 2026-11-07).", "priceSummary": "$1 / 1k req", "where": "hosted", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "No x402, MPP or L402 on the MCP docs or pricing page (checked 2026-11-07).", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": 9, "popularity": { "githubStars": null, "npmWeekly": null, "pypiWeekly": null, "asOf": "2026-11-07" }, "docsUrl": "https://liner.com/developers/docs/mcp", "llmsTxt": "https://liner.com/llms.txt", "registryName": "com.liner/search", "capabilities": [ "search.serp", "search.research", "search.answer", "search.scholar" ], "tags": [ "official", "hosted", "mcp", "remote-mcp", "oauth", "api-key", "paid", "pay-per-call", "status-page", "llms-txt", "mcp-registry" ], "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 43.4, "grade": "E", "agentReady": false, "rank": 1252, "ranked": true, "rankOf": 1510, "categoryRank": 23, "methodology": "0.7", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 65, "maintenance": 45, "payments": 20, "reliability": 50, "schema": 45, "security": 35, "transparency": 34 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "medium", "date": "2026-11-07" }, "negative": 0, "verdict": "Liner's MCP server puts cheap per-call web, scholarly and vertical search and cited research agents behind one OAuth URL, at $1 per 1,000 searches. The docs say which tool fits which question, but there's no free tier, no changelog, no injection guidance and no status component for the API.", "bestFor": "Agents that need cheap cited search across the web and scholarly sources, with optional deep research reports.", "strengths": [ "Web, scholarly, legal, finance, medical and business search plus three cited-answer agents", "Search at $1 per 1,000 requests, published", "Nine tools with a table saying which fits which need", "Rate limits published per API", "OAuth for people, API keys for CI" ], "weaknesses": [ "No free tier found", "No changelog; registry entry unchanged since September", "Status page covers the app, not the API or MCP", "Web content reaches the model with no injection guidance" ], "agentNotes": [ "Use search_scholar for papers and the domain tools for legal, finance, medical or business questions", "Deep research is slower and costs more; use quick_answer_agent for short lookups", "Treat search results and research reports as untrusted content", "Keep under 2 requests a second for scholar search and the agents" ], "metrics": { "kind": "remote", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 0, "avgRating": 0, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "medium", "grade": "E", "methodology": "0.7", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 43.4 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 65, "maintenance": 45, "payments": 20, "reliability": 50, "schema": 45, "security": 35, "transparency": 20 }, "provenanceScore": 48, "checked": { "categories": { "ergonomics": "2026-11-07", "maintenance": "2026-11-07", "payments": "2026-11-07", "reliability": "2026-11-07", "schema": "2026-11-07", "security": "2026-11-07", "transparency": "2026-11-07" }, "last": "2026-11-07", "oldest": "2026-11-07", "stale": false, "staleAfterDays": 90 } }, "connect": { "claudeCode": "claude mcp add liner --transport http https://platform.liner.com/api/v1/mcp", "config": { "mcpServers": { "liner": { "url": "https://platform.liner.com/api/v1/mcp" } } } }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/search.serp", "tool": "https://letme.dev/liner-mcp" }, "area": "web-data", "unitPrices": [ { "item": "Web search", "unit": "1k-requests", "usd": 1, "note": "Also scholar search and visualisation" }, { "item": "Quick Answer Agent", "unit": "1k-requests", "usd": 3 } ], "provenance": { "legalEntity": "Liner", "domain": "liner.com", "domainRegistered": "", "domainNote": "Not looked up: RDAP isn't requested under the 1 November 2026 rules.", "endpointOnVendorDomain": true, "terms": "", "privacy": "", "statusPage": "https://status.liner.com", "changelog": "", "securityTxt": "none", "checked": "2026-11-07", "notes": [ "Terms and privacy weren't read in this batch.", "security.txt answered 404." ], "score": 48 }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/liner-mcp.json", "live": { "slug": "liner-mcp", "probe": { "target": "https://platform.liner.com/api/v1/mcp", "method": "mcp-initialize", "lastAt": "2026-11-07T23:26:39.422662685Z", "lastOk": true, "lastStatus": 401, "lastMs": 181, "lastNote": "asks for credentials", "authRequired": true, "uptime24h": 100, "uptime30d": 100, "p50ms24h": 207, "p95ms24h": 420, "samples24h": 48, "samples30d": 48, "days": [ { "date": "2026-11-07", "probes": 48, "ok": 48 } ] }, "vendorStatus": { "page": "https://status.liner.com", "indicator": "none", "summary": "All Systems Operational", "checkedAt": "2026-11-07T23:31:49.618926282Z" }, "updatedAt": "2026-11-07T23:31:49.618926282Z" } }, "edges": [ { "by": 44, "category": "security", "leads": "bing-grounding", "name": "Security \u0026 auth", "reasons": { "a": "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.", "b": "OAuth 2.1 or an API key; scopes not published (20 of 30). All tools are reads (10 of 20). Results carry web pages and documents with no injection guidance (0). No audit log found (0). No security.txt (404) or security programme found (5 of 20). 20 + 10 + 0 + 0 + 5 = 35." }, "scores": { "a": 79, "b": 35 } }, { "by": 35, "category": "maintenance", "leads": "bing-grounding", "name": "Maintenance \u0026 community", "reasons": { "a": "Read as a closed service with official SDKs, as the other Azure listings are. The web search page was updated on 2 November 2026 and the Bing tools page on 12 October, and azure-ai-projects 2.10.0 shipped on PyPI and npm on 30 October 2026, the SDK that carries the tool types (30). azure-ai-projects released 2.6.0 (4 September), 2.6.1, 2.7.0, 2.8.0 (5 October), 2.9.0 (17 October) and 2.10.0 in the 90 days from 8 August. Their changelogs weren't read for web search changes, so they count as SDK releases (20). Microsoft Learn feedback, Microsoft Q\u0026A and the Azure SDK issue trackers, whose reply times weren't sampled (10 of 15). Current official SDKs in Python, JavaScript, .NET and Java, the .NET one in preview (15). The SDKs live in the azure-sdk monorepos and CI wasn't checked (5 of 10). 30 + 20 + 10 + 15 + 5 = 80.", "b": "Registry entry com.liner/search last updated 11 September 2026 (20). No dated changelog found (0). Support page linked from the docs (10 of 15). Official registry entry under its own namespace (15). No package to read (0). 20 + 0 + 10 + 15 + 0 = 45. Registry presence read from Anchor Terminal's own daily import of the official MCP registry (/api/v1/registry.json, 6 November 2026), not the registry's API." }, "scores": { "a": 80, "b": 45 } }, { "by": 32, "category": "transparency", "leads": "bing-grounding", "name": "Transparency \u0026 trust", "reasons": { "a": "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.", "b": "Terms and privacy linked from the docs but not read in this batch (5 of 30). Data handling not read (5 of 30). No deprecation policy found for the MCP server; the docs note older endpoints priced per version (5 of 20). Subprocessors not read (5 of 20). 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 20." }, "scores": { "a": 66, "b": 34 } }, { "by": 23, "category": "schema", "leads": "bing-grounding", "name": "Schema \u0026 documentation", "reasons": { "a": "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.", "b": "Tool schemas not read without sign-in (15 of 25). llms.txt (10). A table says which tool fits which need, and that the domain tools return the same shape as search_web (12 of 20). Inputs not verifiable (3 of 15). Setup examples, no error responses (5 of 15). Registry version 1.0.0 since 11 September; no changelog found (0). 15 + 10 + 12 + 3 + 5 + 0 = 45." }, "scores": { "a": 68, "b": 45 } }, { "by": 18, "category": "reliability", "leads": "bing-grounding", "name": "Reliability", "reasons": { "a": "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.", "b": "incident.io status page at status.liner.com with components for liner.com and app.liner.com only, none for the API or MCP (15). 100% uptime shown since August (20, no incidents shown). Rate limits published per API with numbers (Scholar Search 2 requests a second, agents 2 a second) (15). 429 with a code for concurrency limits, no Retry-After or backoff guidance found (0 of 15). No SLA found (0). Not labelled beta (0 of 10; 'limits may be adjusted over time', GA not stated). 15 + 20 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 50." }, "scores": { "a": 68, "b": 50 } } ], "facts": [ { "a": "HTTP API", "b": "MCP server", "name": "Kind" }, { "a": "Microsoft", "b": "Liner", "name": "Vendor" }, { "a": "https://{account}.services.ai.azure.com/api/projects/{project}/openai/v1/responses", "b": "https://platform.liner.com/api/v1/mcp", "name": "Hosted endpoint" }, { "a": "Streamable HTTP", "b": "Streamable HTTP", "name": "Transports" }, { "a": "OAuth", "b": "OAuth", "name": "Auth" }, { "a": "Pay per use", "b": "Paid", "name": "Pricing" }, { "a": "not published", "b": "$3 per 1,000 requests", "name": "Price for answer search" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "x402" }, { "a": "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", "b": "none", "name": "Licence" }, { "a": "3", "b": "9", "name": "Tools exposed" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "Read-only variant documented" }, { "a": "no", "b": "yes", "name": "llms.txt" }, { "a": "not listed", "b": "com.liner/search", "name": "MCP registry" }, { "a": "2026-11-02", "b": "none", "name": "Last release" }, { "a": "2025-11-01", "b": "no document linked", "name": "Terms last updated" }, { "a": "2026-09-01", "b": "no document linked", "name": "Privacy policy last updated" }, { "a": "yes", "b": "not read yet", "name": "Customer content may train models" }, { "a": "yes", "b": "not read yet", "name": "Terms restrict automated access" }, { "a": "not found in the text", "b": "not read yet", "name": "Terms restrict benchmarking" }, { "a": "not found in the text", "b": "not read yet", "name": "Terms or service can change without notice" }, { "a": "not found in the text", "b": "not read yet", "name": "Arbitration or class-action waiver" } ], "faq": [ { "answer": "Grounding with Bing Search scores 63.7 (B) on agent readiness against Liner Search MCP's 43.4 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.", "question": "Which is better for AI agents, Grounding with Bing Search or Liner Search MCP?" }, { "answer": "Both use an OAuth sign-in.", "question": "Do Grounding with Bing Search and Liner Search MCP need an API key?" }, { "answer": "Yes. Grounding with Bing Search has a hosted endpoint at https://{account}.services.ai.azure.com/api/projects/{project}/openai/v1/responses and Liner Search MCP at https://platform.liner.com/api/v1/mcp.", "question": "Can an agent call Grounding with Bing Search and Liner Search MCP without installing anything?" } ], "goodFor": [ { "aheadOn": [ "Reliability, 68 against 50", "Schema \u0026 documentation, 68 against 45", "Security \u0026 auth, 79 against 35", "Maintenance \u0026 community, 80 against 45", "Transparency \u0026 trust, 66 against 34" ], "also": null, "goodFor": "Teams already building on Foundry Agent Service who want cited answers from Bing without handling a search key.", "slug": "bing-grounding", "watchFor": "The Bing tools never return raw results to developers, only a model-written answer with citation links" }, { "aheadOn": null, "also": null, "goodFor": "Agents that need cheap cited search across the web and scholarly sources, with optional deep research reports.", "slug": "liner-mcp", "watchFor": "No free tier found" } ], "history": null, "job": { "capability": "search.answer", "name": "Answer search" }, "others": [ { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-web-search-vs-bing-grounding.json", "title": "Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore vs Grounding with Bing Search", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-web-search-vs-bing-grounding" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcmira-vs-bing-grounding.json", "title": "Arcmira vs Grounding with Bing Search", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcmira-vs-bing-grounding" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-brave-search-mcp.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Brave Search API + MCP", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-brave-search-mcp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-cloudflare-web-search.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Cloudflare Web Search API", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-cloudflare-web-search" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-deepseek-search-api.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs DeepSeek Search and Fetch API", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-deepseek-search-api" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-exa-mcp.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Exa API + MCP", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-exa-mcp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-firecrawl-mcp.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Firecrawl MCP", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-firecrawl-mcp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-kagi-search.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Kagi Search API", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-kagi-search" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-linkup.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Linkup", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-linkup" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-mojeek.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Mojeek Web Search API", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-mojeek" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-newscatcher.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs NewsCatcher", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-newscatcher" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-parallel-search-api.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Parallel Search and Task APIs", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-parallel-search-api" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-perplexity-search-api.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Perplexity Search API", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-perplexity-search-api" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-searchapi-io.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs SearchAPI.io", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-searchapi-io" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-serpapi.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs SerpApi", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-serpapi" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-serper.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Serper", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-serper" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-serphouse.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs SERPHouse", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-serphouse" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-serpkite.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs SerpKite", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-serpkite" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-specstream.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs SpecStream", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-specstream" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-tavily-mcp.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Tavily API + MCP", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-tavily-mcp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-tinyfish-search.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs TinyFish Search", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-tinyfish-search" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-valyu.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Valyu", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-valyu" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-you-com-api.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs You.com APIs", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-you-com-api" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcmira-vs-liner-mcp.json", "title": "Arcmira vs Liner Search MCP", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcmira-vs-liner-mcp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-liner-mcp.json", "title": "Exa API + MCP vs Liner Search MCP", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-liner-mcp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grep-ai-vs-liner-mcp.json", "title": "Grep AI vs Liner Search MCP", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grep-ai-vs-liner-mcp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-linkup.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs Linkup", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-linkup" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-newscatcher.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs NewsCatcher", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-newscatcher" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-parallel-search-api.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs Parallel Search and Task APIs", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-parallel-search-api" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-perplexity-search-api.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs Perplexity Search API", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-perplexity-search-api" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-specstream.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs SpecStream", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-specstream" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-tavily-mcp.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs Tavily API + MCP", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-tavily-mcp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs TinyFish Search", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-valyu.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs Valyu", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-valyu" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-you-com-api.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs You.com APIs", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-you-com-api" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-searchapi-io.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs SearchAPI.io", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-searchapi-io" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serpapi.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs SerpApi", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serpapi" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serper.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs Serper", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serper" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serphouse.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs SERPHouse", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serphouse" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serpkite.json", "title": "Liner Search MCP vs SerpKite", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serpkite" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-grep-ai.json", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Grep AI", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-grep-ai" } ], "panel": null, "scores": [ { "bing-grounding": 68, "by": 18, "edge": "bing-grounding", "key": "reliability", "liner-mcp": 50, "name": "Reliability", "weight": 16 }, { "key": "performance", "name": "Performance", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "bing-grounding": 68, "by": 23, "edge": "bing-grounding", "key": "schema", "liner-mcp": 45, "name": "Schema \u0026 documentation", "weight": 13 }, { "bing-grounding": 61, "by": 4, "edge": "liner-mcp", "key": "ergonomics", "liner-mcp": 65, "name": "Agent ergonomics", "weight": 13 }, { "bing-grounding": 79, "by": 44, "edge": "bing-grounding", "key": "security", "liner-mcp": 35, "name": "Security \u0026 auth", "weight": 14 }, { "bing-grounding": 20, "by": 0, "edge": "", "key": "payments", "liner-mcp": 20, "name": "Payments \u0026 pricing", "weight": 10 }, { "key": "tasks", "name": "Task success", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "bing-grounding": 80, "by": 35, "edge": "bing-grounding", "key": "maintenance", "liner-mcp": 45, "name": "Maintenance \u0026 community", "weight": 7 }, { "bing-grounding": 66, "by": 32, "edge": "bing-grounding", "key": "transparency", "liner-mcp": 34, "name": "Transparency \u0026 trust", "weight": 7 } ], "summary": "Grounding with Bing Search scores 63.7 (B) on agent readiness against Liner Search MCP's 43.4 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do answer search.", "tasks": null, "tutorials": [], "verdicts": { "bing-grounding": "First-party Bing grounding inside Foundry Agent Service, called with Entra ID so the agent never holds a search key, at a published $14 per 1,000 transactions. The tools return a model's answer with citations, never the raw results, and data sent to them falls outside Microsoft's Data Protection Addendum and Azure's compliance boundary.", "liner-mcp": "Liner's MCP server puts cheap per-call web, scholarly and vertical search and cited research agents behind one OAuth URL, at $1 per 1,000 searches. The docs say which tool fits which question, but there's no free tier, no changelog, no injection guidance and no status component for the API." } }, "kind": "anchor.page", "links": { "api": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json", "html": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-liner-mcp", "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-liner-mcp.json", "llms": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt", "markdown": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-liner-mcp.md", "mcp": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp", "slim": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-liner-mcp.min.md" }, "markdown": "Grounding with Bing Search scores 63.7 (B) on agent readiness against Liner Search MCP's 43.4 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do answer search.\n\n- Grounding with Bing Search: grade B, 63.7/100, rank #504 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bing-grounding.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/bing-grounding.json\n- Liner Search MCP: grade E, 43.4/100, rank #1252 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/liner-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/liner-mcp.json\n- Best web search APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/search/index.md\n- All 326 search comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/search/index.md\n\n## Which one, for what\n\n### Grounding with Bing Search (B)\n\nGood for: Teams already building on Foundry Agent Service who want cited answers from Bing without handling a search key.\n\nAhead on:\n- Reliability, 68 against 50\n- Schema \u0026 documentation, 68 against 45\n- Security \u0026 auth, 79 against 35\n- Maintenance \u0026 community, 80 against 45\n- Transparency \u0026 trust, 66 against 34\n\nWatch for: The Bing tools never return raw results to developers, only a model-written answer with citation links\n\n### Liner Search MCP (E)\n\nGood for: Agents that need cheap cited search across the web and scholarly sources, with optional deep research reports.\n\nWatch for: No free tier found\n\n\n## Why the edge\n\n### Security \u0026 auth: Grounding with Bing Search +44\n\n- 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.\n- Liner Search MCP (35): OAuth 2.1 or an API key; scopes not published (20 of 30). All tools are reads (10 of 20). Results carry web pages and documents with no injection guidance (0). No audit log found (0). No security.txt (404) or security programme found (5 of 20). 20 + 10 + 0 + 0 + 5 = 35.\n\n### Maintenance \u0026 community: Grounding with Bing Search +35\n\n- Grounding with Bing Search (80): Read as a closed service with official SDKs, as the other Azure listings are. The web search page was updated on 2 November 2026 and the Bing tools page on 12 October, and azure-ai-projects 2.10.0 shipped on PyPI and npm on 30 October 2026, the SDK that carries the tool types (30). azure-ai-projects released 2.6.0 (4 September), 2.6.1, 2.7.0, 2.8.0 (5 October), 2.9.0 (17 October) and 2.10.0 in the 90 days from 8 August. Their changelogs weren't read for web search changes, so they count as SDK releases (20). Microsoft Learn feedback, Microsoft Q\u0026A and the Azure SDK issue trackers, whose reply times weren't sampled (10 of 15). Current official SDKs in Python, JavaScript, .NET and Java, the .NET one in preview (15). The SDKs live in the azure-sdk monorepos and CI wasn't checked (5 of 10). 30 + 20 + 10 + 15 + 5 = 80.\n- Liner Search MCP (45): Registry entry com.liner/search last updated 11 September 2026 (20). No dated changelog found (0). Support page linked from the docs (10 of 15). Official registry entry under its own namespace (15). No package to read (0). 20 + 0 + 10 + 15 + 0 = 45. Registry presence read from Anchor Terminal's own daily import of the official MCP registry (/api/v1/registry.json, 6 November 2026), not the registry's API.\n\n### Transparency \u0026 trust: Grounding with Bing Search +32\n\n- 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.\n- Liner Search MCP (34): Terms and privacy linked from the docs but not read in this batch (5 of 30). Data handling not read (5 of 30). No deprecation policy found for the MCP server; the docs note older endpoints priced per version (5 of 20). Subprocessors not read (5 of 20). 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 20.\n\n### Schema \u0026 documentation: Grounding with Bing Search +23\n\n- 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.\n- Liner Search MCP (45): Tool schemas not read without sign-in (15 of 25). llms.txt (10). A table says which tool fits which need, and that the domain tools return the same shape as search_web (12 of 20). Inputs not verifiable (3 of 15). Setup examples, no error responses (5 of 15). Registry version 1.0.0 since 11 September; no changelog found (0). 15 + 10 + 12 + 3 + 5 + 0 = 45.\n\n### Reliability: Grounding with Bing Search +18\n\n- 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.\n- Liner Search MCP (50): incident.io status page at status.liner.com with components for liner.com and app.liner.com only, none for the API or MCP (15). 100% uptime shown since August (20, no incidents shown). Rate limits published per API with numbers (Scholar Search 2 requests a second, agents 2 a second) (15). 429 with a code for concurrency limits, no Retry-After or backoff guidance found (0 of 15). No SLA found (0). Not labelled beta (0 of 10; 'limits may be adjusted over time', GA not stated). 15 + 20 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 50.\n\n## Score by category\n\n| Category | Weight | Grounding with Bing Search | Liner Search MCP | Edge |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 50 | Grounding with Bing Search +18 |\n| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Schema \u0026 documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 45 | Grounding with Bing Search +23 |\n| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 61 | 65 | Liner Search MCP +4 |\n| Security \u0026 auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 79 | 35 | Grounding with Bing Search +44 |\n| Payments \u0026 pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 20 | even |\n| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Maintenance \u0026 community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 45 | Grounding with Bing Search +35 |\n| Transparency \u0026 trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 66 | 34 | Grounding with Bing Search +32 |\n| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |\n| **Total** | | **63.7 · B** | **43.4 · E** | |\n\n## Facts side by side\n\n| Fact | Grounding with Bing Search | Liner Search MCP |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |\n| Vendor | Microsoft | Liner |\n| Hosted endpoint | `https://{account}.services.ai.azure.com/api/projects/{project}/openai/v1/responses` | `https://platform.liner.com/api/v1/mcp` |\n| Transports | Streamable HTTP | Streamable HTTP |\n| Auth | OAuth | OAuth |\n| Pricing | Pay per use | Paid |\n| Price for answer search | not published | $3 per 1,000 requests |\n| x402 | no | no |\n| Licence | 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 | none |\n| Tools exposed | 3 | 9 |\n| Read-only variant documented | no | no |\n| llms.txt | no | yes |\n| MCP registry | not listed | `com.liner/search` |\n| Last release | 2026-11-02 | none |\n| Terms last updated | 2025-11-01 | no document linked |\n| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-01 | no document linked |\n| Customer content may train models | yes | not read yet |\n| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not read yet |\n| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not read yet |\n| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not read yet |\n| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not read yet |\n\n## Verdicts\n\n**Grounding with Bing Search.** First-party Bing grounding inside Foundry Agent Service, called with Entra ID so the agent never holds a search key, at a published $14 per 1,000 transactions. The tools return a model's answer with citations, never the raw results, and data sent to them falls outside Microsoft's Data Protection Addendum and Azure's compliance boundary.\n\n**Liner Search MCP.** Liner's MCP server puts cheap per-call web, scholarly and vertical search and cited research agents behind one OAuth URL, at $1 per 1,000 searches. The docs say which tool fits which question, but there's no free tier, no changelog, no injection guidance and no status component for the API.\n\n## Before you call either\n\n### Grounding with Bing Search\n\n1. Use the citations in the response annotations as the sources; the tool output itself is not returned, and the terms require showing the URLs and the Bing query link\n2. Expect each run to bill one transaction per tool call at $14 per 1,000, plus model tokens, and set count and freshness in the tool configuration\n3. Treat cited page text as untrusted input and don't put secrets or personal data in prompts, since queries leave the Azure compliance boundary\n4. On 429 back off exponentially; no Retry-After header is documented for the tool\n\n### Liner Search MCP\n\n1. Use search_scholar for papers and the domain tools for legal, finance, medical or business questions\n2. Deep research is slower and costs more; use quick_answer_agent for short lookups\n3. Treat search results and research reports as untrusted content\n4. Keep under 2 requests a second for scholar search and the agents\n\n## Questions\n\n### Which is better for AI agents, Grounding with Bing Search or Liner Search MCP?\n\nGrounding with Bing Search scores 63.7 (B) on agent readiness against Liner Search MCP's 43.4 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.\n\n### Do Grounding with Bing Search and Liner Search MCP need an API key?\n\nBoth use an OAuth sign-in.\n\n### Can an agent call Grounding with Bing Search and Liner Search MCP without installing anything?\n\nYes. Grounding with Bing Search has a hosted endpoint at https://{account}.services.ai.azure.com/api/projects/{project}/openai/v1/responses and Liner Search MCP at https://platform.liner.com/api/v1/mcp.\n\n\n## For agents\n\n- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-liner-mcp.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-liner-mcp.min.md\n- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {\"a\": \"bing-grounding\", \"b\": \"liner-mcp\"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare bing-grounding liner-mcp`\n- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/bing-grounding.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/liner-mcp.json\n\n## Other comparisons with Grounding with Bing Search or Liner Search MCP\n\n- [Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore vs Grounding with Bing Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-web-search-vs-bing-grounding.md)\n- [Arcmira vs Grounding with Bing Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcmira-vs-bing-grounding.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs Brave Search API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-brave-search-mcp.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs Cloudflare Web Search API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-cloudflare-web-search.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs DeepSeek Search and Fetch API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-deepseek-search-api.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs Exa API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-exa-mcp.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs Firecrawl MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-firecrawl-mcp.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs Kagi Search API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-kagi-search.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-linkup.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs Mojeek Web Search API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-mojeek.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs NewsCatcher](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-newscatcher.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs Parallel Search and Task APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-parallel-search-api.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs Perplexity Search API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-perplexity-search-api.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs SearchAPI.io](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-searchapi-io.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs SerpApi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-serpapi.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs Serper](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-serper.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs SERPHouse](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-serphouse.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs SerpKite](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-serpkite.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-specstream.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs Tavily API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-tavily-mcp.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-tinyfish-search.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-valyu.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-you-com-api.md)\n- [Arcmira vs Liner Search MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcmira-vs-liner-mcp.md)\n- [Exa API + MCP vs Liner Search MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-liner-mcp.md)\n- [Grep AI vs Liner Search MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grep-ai-vs-liner-mcp.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-linkup.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs NewsCatcher](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-newscatcher.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs Parallel Search and Task APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-parallel-search-api.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs Perplexity Search API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-perplexity-search-api.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-specstream.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs Tavily API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-tavily-mcp.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-valyu.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-you-com-api.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs SearchAPI.io](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-searchapi-io.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs SerpApi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serpapi.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs Serper](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serper.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs SERPHouse](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serphouse.md)\n- [Liner Search MCP vs SerpKite](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serpkite.md)\n- [Grounding with Bing Search vs Grep AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-grep-ai.md)\n", "meta": { "attribution": "Anchor Terminal (https://www.anchorterminal.com)", "attributionRequired": true, "credit": "CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link the page or API address you took it from (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)", "docs": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/docs/", "generatedAt": "2026-11-07", "license": "CC-BY-4.0", "method": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/", "methodology": "0.7", "openapi": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/openapi.json", "preview": false, "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "terms": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data" }, "page": { "breadcrumbs": [ { "name": "Home", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/" 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Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.", "facts": [ "Grounding with Bing Search B 63.7", "Liner Search MCP E 43.4", "scores" ], "h1": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Liner Search MCP", "image": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/assets/og/default.png", "path": "/compare/bing-grounding-vs-liner-mcp", "published": "2026-10-01", "section": "tools", "title": "Grounding with Bing Search vs Liner Search MCP for AI agents (2026)", "toc": null, "updated": "2026-11-07", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bing-grounding-vs-liner-mcp" }, "tokens": { "markdown": 5050, "slim": 2780 }, "version": 1 }