Grep AI vs SpecStream

Grep AI 40

No machine payment protocol on the live endpoints. The changelog of 8 May 2026 announces x402 and MPP, and the gateway answered 503 gateway_disabled on 8 October and again on 2 November 2026 (0). Plan and credit prices are public, but only the medium tier's credit cost is published and the page and its Markdown twin disagree on credits per dollar (10). 100 free trial credits on the pricing page, 500 Wallet credits for new personal accounts in the 4 October changelog entry, and 500 for an owner's first agent through AgentID. The pricing page doesn't say whether a card is needed, and its table marks the trial without API access (15). AgentID sign-in is documented as needing no human account, but it depends on an AgentMail inbox and a browser step, and we didn't run it (15).

SpecStream 85

x402 v2 (USDC on Base, Arbitrum or Polygon, Permit2 upto for the quoted maximum, settled for the results cost) and MPP by card on SpecStream's own POST /v1/agent/lists, the route for buying a list of 1 to 500 results without an account; enrichment of imported lists, refreshes, monitors and investigations need an account, and the route was read in the docs and not exercised because api.specstream.ai's robots.txt could not be read, so partial (25). Per-result prices published without a login, 5, 15 or 100 cents a result, 5 cents an email, 15 cents a phone, rechecks at half rate or 1 cent (20). $10 of work for 30 days with no card (20). An agent can buy a list over x402 or MPP with no account, and the A2A endpoint prices a request without a key (20). 25+20+20+20 = 85.

Grep AI 50

Graded on the hosted API and MCP server. status.grep.ai runs on incident.io, and since 30 October 2026 it has an API component beside Website (20). Two incidents in the 90 days from 4 August, read from the page's feed and incident pages. On 4 September "Grep.ai currently unavailable" said Grep.ai was "experiencing an outage" for 24 minutes, and on 30 October the Website and API components were both in full outage from 17:17 to 17:24 UTC after an infrastructure provider's failure. Each is a full outage of the whole service, which this run reads as a major however short, so two majors (5). The 8 October check read the September outage as minor by its length. No rate limit numbers found in the docs or the OpenAPI document (0). 429 rate_limited carries Retry-After, and run creation takes an Idempotency-Key with documented replay rules (15). The FAQ mentions SLA guarantees for enterprise customers, and no SLA is published (0). API v2 and the MCP server carry no beta label. The SDKs are at 0.2.1 per the 8 October check, and PyPI classified the Python one as Alpha then (10).

SpecStream 23

Hosted reading, for the MCP server and REST API on api.specstream.ai. No public status page was found. None is linked from the site, llms.txt or the docs, llms-full.txt mentions none, and https://specstream.ai/status returned an error (0). No readable incident history, so the floor (5). No rate limit with numbers is published in the docs, llms.txt, llms-full.txt or the part of the OpenAPI file read; the privacy policy and DPA mention rate limiting without figures, and the published limits are per job (10,000 results a request, four-hour runs, 20,000 imported rows) (0). Nothing documents 429, Retry-After or backoff, but paid work requires an idempotency_key on authorize_capacity_work and POST /v1/capacity/executions, GET /v1/capacity/requests/{request_key} recovers the original find after an uncertain response, and the skills say never to quote again to recover a lost reply (8 of 15). No SLA on any plan, and the terms say 'We do not promise uninterrupted access' (0). No beta or preview label on the API, the MCP server or the SDKs, which PyPI classifies as production and stable at 1.2 (10). 0+5+0+8+0+10 = 23.

Grep AI 64

OAuth through Descope with five scopes, and API keys that can be created with a subset of scopes, listed and revoked through the API (30). Read scopes, validate_only and dry_run on agent changes, a per-run max_cost_usd and versioned restores. No confirmation step for deletes or for making a run public (14). Reports are built from untrusted web pages. The docs describe an SSRF-guarded fetch for context files, and no prompt-injection guidance for callers was found (3). Each run has a timeline of execution events, and billing transactions and usage are readable through the API (12). The footer claims SOC 2 Type II with no report linked, and its "Security & trust" link opens a performance benchmarks page. security.txt returns 404, and no disclosure policy or bug bounty was found, so this is a bare SOC 2 claim, which this run reads as 5 (5). Webhooks are signed with the API key itself.

SpecStream 73

API keys ss_live_... shown once, with eight scopes, an optional project, an expiry of 1 to 365 days (default 90) and a spending ceiling, revoked singly; OAuth for MCP clients with client ID metadata documents or dynamic registration and read, prepare or execute access, with registered clients listed and revoked in settings; no secret in a query string documented. The authorisation server metadata on api.specstream.ai was not read and rotation is not described beyond expiry (28 of 30). Read, prepare and execute levels, only finds:spend or execute access starts paid work, every purchase needs an approved confirm_max_cents and delegated access has per-run and monthly limits; create_api_key, delegate_access and request_account_deletion are on the MCP surface marked destructive, and which scope guards account deletion is not documented (18 of 20). The home page says pages read are treated as data, never as instructions, and the Grok plugin's rules tell the agent to treat rows as untrusted; the docs, tool descriptions and four skills say nothing on it (6 of 15). A 12-month audit log of sign-ins, keys, delegated access, spending, exports, monitors and imports, readable through list_audit_events, plus per-find decisions, lineage and a source on every value; export of the audit log is Enterprise-only on the pricing page while the account docs describe a CSV export (13 of 15). security.txt is valid until October 2027 with support@specstream.ai, and SECURITY.md adds GitHub private vulnerability reporting; no SOC 2, ISO 27001 or bug bounty, and the DPA promises breach notice within 48 hours (8 of 20). 28+18+6+13+8 = 73.

Grep AI 74

The changelog's newest entry is v3.71 on 20 October 2026, 13 days before this check (30). 14 dated changelog entries since 4 August, from v3.1.1 on 7 August to v3.71 on 20 October (20). Closed service with a public changelog and support at support@parcha.ai. We didn't test whether support answers (8). Current SDKs in two languages per the 8 October check (@parcha/agentrun and parcha-agentrun 0.2.1, 30 September), with docs that lag them. Not found in the official MCP registry (12). The skills repository runs a test workflow and hasn't changed since 30 September. The SDK repositories named in the package metadata asked for credentials, so their CI wasn't read (4). The 8 October PyPI reading came from a path pypi.org's robots.txt disallows and is struck; npm and PyPI didn't answer on 2 November.

SpecStream 81

specstream-mcp-stdio 1.2.3 on PyPI on 3 November 2026, the Python SDK 1.2.0 committed the same day and @specstream/sdk 1.2.0 on npm on 31 October (30). Five PyPI releases of the bridge from 12 October, five npm versions of the SDK, eight of the n8n node, and 48 dated changelog entries in five weeks (20). A closed service with a dated changelog, support@specstream.ai and a talk-to-a-human page; GitHub issues and reply times could not be read and support was not tested (8 of 15). server.json under the reverse-DNS namespace ai.specstream/specstream 1.3.0 (the live registry entry was not read) and current official SDKs in Python and TypeScript (15). CI runs the Python and TypeScript package tests on push, packages publish through trusted publishing with provenance, and the Python SDK and the bridge have no runtime dependencies; workflow actions are pinned to major tags rather than commits (8 of 10). 30+20+8+15+8 = 81.

Grep AI 70

The MCP server card lists 137 tools, 57 of them deprecated aliases, with no documented toolsets. Reports default to plain Markdown and large files come back as signed URLs, so some credit back (8). Cursor pagination with limit on runs, timelines and transactions, and server-side filters on the skill and tool lists (18). One error envelope with stable codes and a request_id, and 402 for credits kept apart from 429 for rate (20). Idempotency-Key with body-hash matching and a 24-hour replay window. The server card shows no readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotations, and the live tool list wasn't read (12). Only question is required and effort defaults to low. TypeScript and Python SDKs exist, though one docs page still calls the release pending and names a PyPI package that returns 404 (12).

SpecStream 65

MCP reading. 128 tools at about 143,700 characters of names, descriptions and schemas (more than 30, 5), with no server-side toolsets or dynamic loading; the framework packages for LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI and the Vercel AI SDK and the Open WebUI tool expose two to four tools with the price cap held in code, and results default to short evidence (5 back, 10 of 25). Cursor and limit on rows, search, specs and revisits, evidence short or full, filters by area and by field on collections, and unconfirmed candidates kept in a separate list (18 of 20). An ErrorEnvelope on every operation and an SDK error class that exposes code and details, but no published code list, meanings or retry rules (6 of 20). Required idempotency keys on paid work, schedules and refund claims with a recovery route, expected_version on updates, stable event ids on webhook retries, and readOnlyHint on 72 tools and destructiveHint on 29, with no idempotentHint (18 of 20). compile needs only q, a quote needs only ast_hash with 25 results by default, and official SDKs in Python and TypeScript with a CLI, though one purchase takes three calls with a hash carried between them (13 of 15). 10+18+6+18+13 = 65.

Grep AI 61

Closed service with published terms, written as an order-form contract that still points to grep.parcha.ai. The SDK packages state no licence, and the skills package is MIT (12). Section 12 of the terms says AI providers retain nothing and customer data isn't used for training. Section 4.2 grants a perpetual licence to use customer data to improve the platform, and the privacy policy gives retention only as "as long as needed". No DPA found (12). v1 is marked deprecated, /research answers with a deprecation: true header and a successor link, and 31 MCP tools are labelled deprecated, all without dates or a written policy (8). The privacy policy names Google Analytics and PostHog and says data may be processed in any country. No subprocessor list found (4).

SpecStream 66

Closed hosted service under terms of 3 November 2026 naming SpecStream SAS, French law and a liability cap of the greater of 12 months' fees or 100 euros; the client code is MIT (20 of 30). The privacy policy and DPA agree with each other and the about page on EU hosting, no training on customer requests, lists or results, and a retention table (server logs 30 days, backups 8 days, page copies 24 hours, run working copies 7 days, audit log 12 months, support 3 years, accounts until deleted, erased from backups within 8 days of deletion), with breach notice in 48 hours and audit rights; the pricing page and the account docs disagree on who can export the audit log (27 of 30). No API deprecation policy; the changelog dates a price cut of 26 October 2026 that kept approved quotes at their old prices, the terms promise notice of material changes and keep historical quotes on their terms, and the DPA gives 30 days' notice of a new subprocessor (8 of 20). Subprocessors are listed by category with locations and transfer safeguards, hosting on IBM Cloud in Madrid is named in the legal notice, and names are available only on request (12 of 20). 20+27+8+12 = 67.