# Fetch (MCP reference server) vs Valyu

> Valyu has a score of 64.6 (B) against Fetch (MCP reference server)'s 57.6 (C). Both do fetching pages. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 38 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-valyu
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-valyu.md (~1,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-valyu.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-valyu.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: 2026-10-05

Valyu has a score of 64.6 (B) against Fetch (MCP reference server)'s 57.6 (C). Both do fetching pages. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 38 points.

- Fetch (MCP reference server): grade C, 57.6/100, rank #290 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/fetch-reference-server.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/fetch-reference-server.json
- Valyu: grade B, 64.6/100, rank #179 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/valyu.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/valyu.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Fetch (MCP reference server) for payments & pricing (+15).

Pick Valyu for schema & documentation (+17), security & auth (+14), maintenance & community (+38).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Fetch (MCP reference server) | Valyu | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 53 | 53 | even |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 87 | Valyu +17 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 78 | even |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 30 | 44 | Valyu +14 |
| 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 | 80 | Valyu +38 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 79 | Valyu +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **57.6 · C** | **64.6 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Fetch (MCP reference server) | Valyu |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | MCP project (reference servers) | Valyu |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.valyu.ai/v1/search` |
| Transports | stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT and Apache-2.0 | none |
| Tools exposed | 1 | 6 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-08-18 | 2026-09-12 |
| Popularity | 90k stars, 118k PyPI/wk | 19 stars, 6.7k npm/wk, 7.1k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 4.5/5 (2) |

## 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.

**Valyu.** Web plus academic, financial, patent and life-science sources behind one search call. No published rate limits and no Retry-After or backoff guidance.

## 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

### Valyu

1. Set `max_price` and `max_num_results` on every search to bound cost
2. Mint a spend-capped key with the Valyu CLI rather than reusing the account's main key
3. Call `valyu_search`. The legacy per-vertical MCP tools stop working on 2026-12-01
4. A 206 means some sources failed. Check which before treating results as complete
5. DeepResearch is async. Poll `valyu_deepresearch_status` rather than waiting in one call

## Other comparisons with Fetch (MCP reference server) or Valyu

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