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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

DeepSeek Search and Fetch API vs TinyFish Search

TinyFish Search scores 63.2 (B) on agent readiness against DeepSeek Search and Fetch API's 53.2 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. DeepSeek Search and Fetch API leads on reliability and transparency & trust. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $0.75 per 1,000 requests.

Best web search APIs for AI agents · All 163 search comparisons

DeepSeek Search and Fetch APIDeepSeek · HTTP API D53.2/100#795 of 1133 TinyFish SearchTinyFish · HTTP API B63.2/100#445 of 1133

Which one, for what

DeepSeek Search and Fetch API D

Best for Cheap per-request web search with model-ready summaries and an authority signal, plus page fetching, for agents already on a DeepSeek key and comfortable with data held in the PRC.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 65 against 50
  • Transparency & trust, 60 against 52

Watch for

Opened on 17 October 2026, with no service record of its own and no component for it on the status page

TinyFish Search B

Best 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 55
  • Security & auth, 58 against 38
  • Payments & pricing, 45 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 78 against 42

Also in its favour

  • Cheaper for web search, $0 against $0.75 per 1,000 requests
  • 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 runDeepSeek Search and Fetch APITinyFish SearchEdge
Reliability16%206550DeepSeek Search and Fetch API +15
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25582TinyFish Search +27
Agent ergonomics13%16.28178DeepSeek Search and Fetch API +3
Security & auth14%17.53858TinyFish Search +20
Payments & pricing10%12.52045TinyFish Search +25
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.84278TinyFish Search +36
Transparency & trust7%8.86052DeepSeek Search and Fetch API +8
Negative events≤1500
TotalD 53.2/100B 63.2/100

Facts side by side

FactDeepSeek Search and Fetch APITinyFish Search
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorDeepSeekTinyFish
Hosted endpointhttps://api.deepseek.com/v1/tools/searchhttps://api.search.tinyfish.ai
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingPay per useFreemium
Price for web search$0.75 per 1,000 requestsfree
x402nono
LicencenoneProprietary 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 documentedyesno
llms.txtnoyes
MCP registrynot listedai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent
Last release2026-10-172026-09-29
Terms last updatedcouldn't be read2026-08-17
Privacy policy last updatedcouldn't be read2025-12-14
Customer content may train modelscouldn't be readyes
Terms restrict automated accesscouldn't be readyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingcouldn't be readyes
Terms or service can change without noticecouldn't be readnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivercouldn't be readyes
Popularitynone9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3/5 (4)3/5 (4)

Verdicts

DeepSeek Search and Fetch API

Search returns up to 50 results with a model-length summary, an authority tier and optional full text, and only successful non-empty calls are billed, at $0.75 per 1,000. It opened on 17 October 2026, with 5 requests a second per account, no OpenAPI file, no free tier, and data held in the PRC under a policy that permits training.

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

DeepSeek Search and Fetch API

  1. Keep query to 128 characters and put filters in it as operators, such as site:github.com lang:en after:2026-01-01
  2. Leave need_content false and read summary first, then call Fetch on the URLs you keep
  3. Stay under 5 requests a second per account across all keys. On 408, 429 or 5xx wait and retry, since no Retry-After is documented
  4. Don't retry a Fetch 403 or 404 unchanged. The page is blocked by policy, unreachable or has no Markdown
  5. Don't send private queries or an end user's IP in localization. Data is stored in the PRC

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, DeepSeek Search and Fetch API or TinyFish Search?

TinyFish Search scores 63.2 (B) on agent readiness against DeepSeek Search and Fetch API's 53.2 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. DeepSeek Search and Fetch API leads on reliability and transparency & trust.

Which is cheaper for web search, DeepSeek Search and Fetch API or TinyFish Search?

TinyFish Search, at free against $0.75 per 1,000 requests for DeepSeek Search and Fetch API. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

Do DeepSeek Search and Fetch API and TinyFish Search need an API key?

DeepSeek Search and Fetch API needs an API key. TinyFish Search takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call DeepSeek Search and Fetch API and TinyFish Search without installing anything?

Yes. DeepSeek Search and Fetch API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.deepseek.com/v1/tools/search and TinyFish Search at https://api.search.tinyfish.ai.

Other comparisons with DeepSeek Search and Fetch API or TinyFish Search

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