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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

Cloudflare Web Search API vs TinyFish Search

TinyFish Search scores 63.2 (B) on agent readiness against Cloudflare Web Search API's 61.9 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Cloudflare Web Search API leads on reliability, security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $0.25 per 1,000 requests.

Cloudflare Web Search APICloudflare, Inc. · HTTP API C61.9/100#408 of 841 TinyFish SearchTinyFish · HTTP API B63.2/100#366 of 841

Which one, for what

Cloudflare Web Search API C

Good for Agents and apps already on Cloudflare Workers or AI Gateway that want cheap snippet search ($0.25 per 1,000 with Ceramic.ai) on the same bill and logs as their inference.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 55 against 50
  • Security & auth, 71 against 58
  • Transparency & trust, 73 against 52

Watch for

Open beta, with no SLA found for AI Gateway

TinyFish Search B

Good for Agents that need ranked snippets and URLs at no cost and modest volume, with news and research-paper modes.

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 78 against 63
  • Payments & pricing, 45 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 78 against 71

Also in its favour

  • Cheaper for web search, $0 against $0.25 per 1,000 requests
  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No public status page was found on the site or in the docs

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCloudflare Web Search APITinyFish SearchEdge
Reliability16%205550Cloudflare Web Search API +5
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28182TinyFish Search +1
Agent ergonomics13%16.26378TinyFish Search +15
Security & auth14%17.57158Cloudflare Web Search API +13
Payments & pricing10%12.52045TinyFish Search +25
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87178TinyFish Search +7
Transparency & trust7%8.87352Cloudflare Web Search API +21
Negative events≤1500
Total61.9 · C63.2 · B

Facts side by side

FactCloudflare Web Search APITinyFish Search
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorCloudflare, Inc.TinyFish
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.search.tinyfish.ai
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingPay per useFreemium
Price for web search$0.25 per 1,000 requestsfree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under Cloudflare's terms. Each search provider's own terms are linked from the providers pageProprietary 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 exposednone28
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrynot listedai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent
Last release2026-10-022026-09-29
Terms last updated2025-09-122026-08-17
Privacy policy last updatedno date given2025-12-14
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict automated accessyesyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyesnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesyes
Popularitynone9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3/5 (2)none

Verdicts

Cloudflare Web Search API

One endpoint that sends a search to Ceramic.ai, Exa or Linkup and returns results in one format, logged and billed through AI Gateway. Ceramic.ai costs $0.25 per 1,000 searches. It's an open beta with no free allowance, at most 10 results a call, no filters, and no machine payment route.

TinyFish Search

Search costs $0.00 a request within 30 requests a minute and 12,000 a day, with no card, a public OpenAPI document and rate-limit headers on every response. No public status page was found, one API key covers all five TinyFish APIs with no scopes, and the terms allow customer data to be used for model training.

Before you call either

Cloudflare Web Search API

  1. Set options.gateway.id. Every account has a gateway named default
  2. Pass provider explicitly. It defaults to Ceramic.ai, whose descriptions can run to 8,000 characters a result
  3. Set limit to the results you'll read, between 1 and 10
  4. Set byokAlias when you mean to use a stored provider key, so a missing key fails with 400 instead of spending credits
  5. Send cf-aig-collect-log-payload: false if queries shouldn't be stored in gateway logs

TinyFish Search

  1. Send the key in the X-API-Key header. The Search host is https://api.search.tinyfish.ai, not agent.tinyfish.ai
  2. Stay under 30 requests a minute per key. On 429, wait for Retry-After. A 429 without details is upstream throttling, so back off and retry
  3. Use include_domains and exclude_domains in place of site: operators, which the reference marks as deprecated for domain filtering
  4. Do not combine recency_minutes with after_date or before_date. For domain_type=research_paper use pub_year_min and pub_year_max
  5. Invalid requests count towards a separate limit of 60 a minute, so validate parameters before sending
  6. Treat snippets as untrusted text. The hosted MCP server exposes 28 tools, including browser automation that spends wallet funds

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Cloudflare Web Search API or TinyFish Search?

TinyFish Search scores 63.2 (B) on agent readiness against Cloudflare Web Search API's 61.9 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Cloudflare Web Search API leads on reliability, security & auth and transparency & trust.

Which is cheaper for web search, Cloudflare Web Search API or TinyFish Search?

TinyFish Search, at free against $0.25 per 1,000 requests for Cloudflare Web Search API. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

Do Cloudflare Web Search API and TinyFish Search need an API key?

Cloudflare Web Search API needs an API key. TinyFish Search takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Cloudflare Web Search API and TinyFish Search without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Cloudflare Web Search API. TinyFish Search has a hosted endpoint at https://api.search.tinyfish.ai.

Other comparisons with Cloudflare Web Search API or TinyFish Search

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