# Fetch (MCP reference server) vs TinyFish Search

> TinyFish Search scores 63.2 (B) on agent readiness against Fetch (MCP reference server)'s 57.5 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Fetch (MCP reference server) leads on payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do fetching pages. Category scores, facts, verdicts…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-tinyfish-search
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-tinyfish-search.md (~2,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-tinyfish-search.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-tinyfish-search.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

TinyFish Search scores 63.2 (B) on agent readiness against Fetch (MCP reference server)'s 57.5 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Fetch (MCP reference server) leads on payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do fetching pages.

- Fetch (MCP reference server): grade C, 57.5/100, rank #546 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fetch-reference-server.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/fetch-reference-server.json
- TinyFish Search: grade B, 63.2/100, rank #366 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tinyfish-search.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tinyfish-search.json

## Which one, for what

### Fetch (MCP reference server) (C)

Good for: Reading a known URL as Markdown in a local or sandboxed agent, at no cost.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 45
- Transparency & trust, 73 against 52

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source

Watch for: Reaches private and loopback addresses and follows redirects, with no allow list

### 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:
- Schema & documentation, 82 against 70
- Security & auth, 58 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 78 against 42

Also in its favour:
- 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

| Category | Weight | Fetch (MCP reference server) | TinyFish Search | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 53 | 50 | Fetch (MCP reference server) +3 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 82 | TinyFish Search +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 78 | even |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 30 | 58 | TinyFish Search +28 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 45 | Fetch (MCP reference server) +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 42 | 78 | TinyFish Search +36 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 73 | 52 | Fetch (MCP reference server) +21 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **57.5 · C** | **63.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Fetch (MCP reference server) | TinyFish Search |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | MCP project (reference servers) | TinyFish |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.search.tinyfish.ai` |
| Transports | stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT and Apache-2.0 | 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 | 1 | 28 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `ai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent` |
| Last release | 2026-08-18 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2021-09-08 | 2026-08-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2023-03-15 | 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 |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 90k stars, 118k PyPI/wk | 9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Fetch (MCP reference server).** One tool of about 300 tokens, with `max_length` and `start_index` paging and a hint giving the next offset. Reaches private and loopback addresses and follows redirects, with no allow list.

**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

### Fetch (MCP reference server)

1. Fetch with the 5,000-character default and continue from the `start_index` the truncation note gives
2. Expect empty bodies from JavaScript-rendered sites and switch to a browser tool
3. Treat a robots.txt refusal as final for autonomous calls and tell the user
4. Use `raw: true` only for non-HTML content. It skips the Markdown conversion and returns the page as served

### 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, Fetch (MCP reference server) or TinyFish Search?

TinyFish Search scores 63.2 (B) on agent readiness against Fetch (MCP reference server)'s 57.5 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Fetch (MCP reference server) leads on payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

### Do Fetch (MCP reference server) and TinyFish Search need an API key?

Fetch (MCP reference server) needs no key. TinyFish Search takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Fetch (MCP reference server) and TinyFish Search without installing anything?

Fetch (MCP reference server) runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. TinyFish Search has a hosted endpoint at https://api.search.tinyfish.ai.

### Are Fetch (MCP reference server) and TinyFish Search open source?

Fetch (MCP reference server) is open source (MIT and Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for TinyFish Search.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-tinyfish-search.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-tinyfish-search.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "fetch-reference-server", "b": "tinyfish-search"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare fetch-reference-server tinyfish-search`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/fetch-reference-server.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tinyfish-search.json

## Other comparisons with Fetch (MCP reference server) or TinyFish Search

- [Brave Search API + MCP vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brave-search-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Cloudflare Web Search API vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-web-search-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Exa API + MCP vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Firecrawl MCP vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Linkup vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Parallel Search and Task APIs vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/parallel-search-api-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [SearchAPI.io vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/searchapi-io-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [SerpApi vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpapi-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Serper vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serper-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [SerpKite vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpkite-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Tavily API + MCP vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tavily-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [TinyFish Search vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tinyfish-search-vs-valyu.md)
- [TinyFish Search vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tinyfish-search-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [Exa API + MCP vs Fetch (MCP reference server)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-fetch-reference-server.md)
- [Fetch (MCP reference server) vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-linkup.md)
- [Fetch (MCP reference server) vs Parallel Search and Task APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-parallel-search-api.md)
- [Fetch (MCP reference server) vs SerpKite](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-serpkite.md)
- [Fetch (MCP reference server) vs Tavily API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-tavily-mcp.md)
- [Fetch (MCP reference server) vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-valyu.md)
- [Fetch (MCP reference server) vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [Grep AI vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grep-ai-vs-tinyfish-search.md)

## Disclosure

- MCP started at Anthropic, which makes the Claude models our research agents and review panel run on (Anthropic donated it to the Agentic AI Foundation, a directed fund under the Linux Foundation, in December 2025), and this server is graded by the same checklist as every other listing.