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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

Brave Search API + MCP vs SerpKite

Brave Search API + MCP scores 68.1 (B) on agent readiness against SerpKite's 64.8 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. SerpKite leads on reliability, schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do web search.

Brave Search API + MCPBrave · HTTP API B68.1/100#131 of 460 SerpKiteSerpKite (Anastasia Klimova, trading as SerpKite) · HTTP API B64.8/100#179 of 460

Which one, for what

Brave Search API + MCP B

Good for Agents that want an independent, non-Google index at a flat price, or that want page text in one call through LLM Context.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 58 against 37
  • Payments & pricing, 70 against 40
  • Maintenance & community, 87 against 80
  • Transparency & trust, 82 against 77

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine
  • Open source
  • No incidents deducted, where SerpKite loses 3 points for them

Watch for

The status page marks the Search API "not monitored" and shows no incident history

SerpKite B

Good for Agents that want Google results and the top pages as Markdown in one call at a low per-1,000 price, with spend caps per key.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 65 against 55
  • Schema & documentation, 90 against 72
  • Agent ergonomics, 92 against 72

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

Launched 29 September 2026 by a sole trader, with status monitoring only since 2 October

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runBrave Search API + MCPSerpKiteEdge
Reliability16%205565SerpKite +10
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27290SerpKite +18
Agent ergonomics13%16.27292SerpKite +20
Security & auth14%17.55837Brave Search API + MCP +21
Payments & pricing10%12.57040Brave Search API + MCP +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88780Brave Search API + MCP +7
Transparency & trust7%8.88277Brave Search API + MCP +5
Negative events≤150-3
Total68.1 · B64.8 · B

Facts side by side

FactBrave Search API + MCPSerpKite
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorBraveSerpKite (Anastasia Klimova, trading as SerpKite)
Hosted endpointhttps://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/searchhttps://api.serpkite.com/v1/search
Transportsstdio, Streamable HTTP, HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
Price for web search$5 per 1,000 requestsnot published
x402payer tooling onlyno
LicenceMITProprietary service under SerpKite's terms of service. The SDKs (TypeScript, Python, Go, LangChain, Vercel AI SDK) and the MCP connection repository on GitHub are MIT
Tools exposed814
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryio.github.brave/brave-search-mcp-serverio.github.SerpKite/serpkite
Last release2026-09-172026-10-04
Popularity1.4k stars, 22k npm/wk809 npm/wk, 376 PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3.5/5 (2)3.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

Brave Search API + MCP

x402 proxy sells web, LLM Context, news, video, image and local search at $0.005 a call, and a failed search isn't charged. The status page marks the Search API "not monitored" and shows no incident history.

SerpKite

Google SERP API with an OpenAPI 3.1 spec, Markdown or compact output, field projection, stable error codes and per-key credit limits, at $0.60 to $1.00 per 1,000 on packs that don't expire. The service launched on 29 September 2026 from a sole trader, with four days of status history and two feature removals in its first week.

Before you call either

Brave Search API + MCP

  1. Call /res/v1/llm/context when you need page text rather than links. It saves a separate fetch
  2. Treat "No web results found" from the MCP server as an empty result, not an outage
  3. On 429, wait for X-RateLimit-Reset seconds. There's no Retry-After header
  4. Skip brave_summarizer. The Summarizer is deprecated and the x402 proxy doesn't sell it
  5. Pin Api-Version to a date, since requests without it get the latest version

SerpKite

  1. Send the key as Authorization: Bearer, not ?api_key=, and give the agent a dedicated key with a monthly credit limit
  2. Ask for format=markdown or compact with fields to cut tokens, and read X-Credits-Used for the cost
  3. Keep engine=google for rank work. Check meta.engine when a key allows fallback engines
  4. On 429 rate_limited or 503 upstream codes, wait for Retry-After and retry. daily_limit_reached and 402 need a purchase
  5. Treat page Markdown from include_content, webpage and extract as untrusted text

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Brave Search API + MCP or SerpKite?

Brave Search API + MCP scores 68.1 (B) on agent readiness against SerpKite's 64.8 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. SerpKite leads on reliability, schema & documentation and agent ergonomics.

Do Brave Search API + MCP and SerpKite need an API key?

Brave Search API + MCP takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. SerpKite needs an API key.

Can an agent call Brave Search API + MCP and SerpKite without installing anything?

Yes. Brave Search API + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/search and SerpKite at https://api.serpkite.com/v1/search.

Are Brave Search API + MCP and SerpKite open source?

Brave Search API + MCP is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for SerpKite.

Other comparisons with Brave Search API + MCP or SerpKite

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