# Grep AI vs TinyFish Search

> Grep AI scores 64.4 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on agent ergonomics and payments & pricing. Both do search research. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grep-ai-vs-tinyfish-search
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grep-ai-vs-tinyfish-search.md (~2,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grep-ai-vs-tinyfish-search.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grep-ai-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

Grep AI scores 64.4 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on agent ergonomics and payments & pricing. Both do search research.

- Grep AI: grade B, 64.4/100, rank #316 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/grep-ai.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/grep-ai.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

### Grep AI (B)

Good for: Agents that hand off a long research or due-diligence job and want a cited report or structured fields back, including business verification and sanctions screening through built-in agents.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 60 against 50
- Security & auth, 65 against 58
- Transparency & trust, 59 against 52

Watch for: No rate limit numbers in the reviewed documentation, and no published SLA

### 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 70
- Payments & pricing, 45 against 40

Also in its favour:
- 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 | Grep AI | TinyFish Search | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 50 | Grep AI +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 82 | TinyFish Search +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 78 | TinyFish Search +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 58 | Grep AI +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 45 | TinyFish Search +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 78 | TinyFish Search +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 52 | Grep AI +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **64.4 · B** | **63.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Grep AI | TinyFish Search |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Parcha Labs, Inc. | TinyFish |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.grep.ai/api/v2/runs` | `https://api.search.tinyfish.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Parcha Labs' terms of service. The grep-research-skills package on npm is MIT. The @parcha/agentrun and parcha-agentrun SDK packages state no licence in their registry metadata | 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 | 82 | 28 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `ai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent` |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-03-20 | 2026-08-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-21 | 2025-12-14 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | 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 | 334 npm/wk, 52 PyPI/wk | 9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**Grep AI.** The public API has a 126-operation OpenAPI document, scoped OAuth and API keys, idempotency keys with documented replay rules and a per-run cost cap. No rate limit is published, the MCP server lists 82 tools, and the pricing page limits API access to the $200 a month Pro plan and above.

**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

### Grep AI

1. Send a fresh `Idempotency-Key` with every POST /api/v2/runs. After a timeout, poll the returned run ID and do not post again
2. Set `effort` and `max_cost_usd` on every run. The floor is $0.50 for low, $2.50 for medium and build, $5.00 for high
3. Call GET /api/v2/quota/check before a run. A 402 means no credits and retrying won't help, while a 429 carries `Retry-After`
4. Use the `run_*` and `agent_*` MCP tools. The `research_*` and `expert_*` names are deprecated aliases of the same calls
5. Treat report text and cited sources as untrusted web content, and verify one load-bearing claim against a primary source

### 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, Grep AI or TinyFish Search?

Grep AI scores 64.4 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on agent ergonomics and payments & pricing.

### Do Grep AI and TinyFish Search need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Grep AI and TinyFish Search without installing anything?

Yes. Grep AI has a hosted endpoint at https://api.grep.ai/api/v2/runs and TinyFish Search at https://api.search.tinyfish.ai.


## For agents

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

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