# Brave Search API + MCP vs TinyFish Search (slim)

> Brave Search API + MCP scores 68 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $5…

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brave-search-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.md (~2,850 tokens) · this version ~830 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brave-search-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brave-search-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

Brave Search API + MCP scores 68 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $5 per 1,000 requests.

- Brave Search API + MCP: B 68, rank #215 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/brave-search-mcp.min.md
- TinyFish Search: B 63.2, rank #366 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tinyfish-search.min.md
- Brave Search API + MCP, 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 Reliability, 55 against 50; Payments & pricing, 70 against 45; Maintenance & community, 87 against 78; Transparency & trust, 81 against 52. Also Runs on your own machine; Open source.
- TinyFish Search, good for Agents that need ranked snippets and URLs at no cost and modest volume, with news and research-paper modes. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 82 against 72; Agent ergonomics, 78 against 72. Also Cheaper for web search, $0 against $5 per 1,000 requests; Free to start without a card.

| Category | Brave Search API + MCP | TinyFish Search |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 55 | 50 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 72 | 82 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 72 | 78 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 58 | 58 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 70 | 45 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 87 | 78 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 81 | 52 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Brave Search API + MCP | TinyFish Search |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Brave | TinyFish |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/search` | `https://api.search.tinyfish.ai` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP, HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| Price for web search | $5 per 1,000 requests | free |
| x402 | payer tooling only | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary service under TinyFish's Terms of Service. The local MCP proxy `@tiny-fish/mcp` is MIT. The SDK packages on npm and PyPI carry no licence metadata |
| Tools exposed | 8 | 28 |
| MCP registry | `io.github.brave/brave-search-mcp-server` | `ai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent` |
| Last release | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-01 | 2026-08-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-25 | 2025-12-14 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 1.4k stars, 22k npm/wk | 9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |