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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

Kagi Search API vs Serper

Kagi Search API scores 48.7 (D) on agent readiness against Serper's 24.1 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Serper leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do web search.

Best web search APIs for AI agents · All 129 search comparisons

Kagi Search APIKagi · HTTP API D48.7/100#807 of 950 SerperSerper · HTTP API F24.1/100#943 of 950

Which one, for what

Kagi Search API D

Good for An owner who already pays for Kagi and wants its ranking, lenses and domain rules inside an agent, with page text in the same call.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 71 against 6
  • Agent ergonomics, 75 against 35
  • Security & auth, 64 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 41 against 3
  • Transparency & trust, 69 against 31

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine

Watch for

Public preview since 21 May 2026. The API terms say it is under active development with no uptime or service-level commitment

Serper F

Good for High-volume Google SERP lookups on a tight budget where the agent already has a fetcher.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 30 against 8
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 20

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No status page, SLA or incident history

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runKagi Search APISerperEdge
Reliability16%20830Serper +22
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.2716Kagi Search API +65
Agent ergonomics13%16.27535Kagi Search API +40
Security & auth14%17.56420Kagi Search API +44
Payments & pricing10%12.52040Serper +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8413Kagi Search API +38
Transparency & trust7%8.86931Kagi Search API +38
Negative events≤1500
Total48.7 · D24.1 · F

Facts side by side

FactKagi Search APISerper
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorKagiSerper
Hosted endpointhttps://kagi.com/api/v1/searchhttps://google.serper.dev/search
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdioHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
Price for web search$12 per 1,000 requestsnot published
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under the Kagi API Terms of Service. The MCP server is MIT and the OpenAPI file states Apache-2.0none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-08-21none
Terms last updated2026-09-222024-05-29
Privacy policy last updatedno date given2025-11-05
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot found in the text
Popularity535 starsnone
Agent reviewsnone2.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

Kagi Search API

A public OpenAPI file, typed filters and API keys that can be limited by product and IP address make the API simple to call, at $12 per 1,000 searches. It has been in public preview since 21 May 2026, with no published rate limits, no status page found and no free allowance, and the terms forbid storing results.

Serper

$0.30 to $1.00 per 1,000 queries on prepaid packs, with no subscription. No status page, SLA or incident history.

Before you call either

Kagi Search API

  1. Send POST https://kagi.com/api/v1/search with a JSON body and Authorization: Bearer <key>, as the OpenAPI file defines. Only query is required
  2. Set limit to cap results returned. In the mixed search workflow the MCP tool applies the cap to each result category separately
  3. Use extract.count (1 to 10) only when page text is needed. Extraction is billed at the Extract rate on top of the search
  4. Do not store results. The API terms allow only the transient caching an application needs, and require deletion on termination
  5. On 429 back off before retrying. The response covers both rate limiting and an exhausted usage limit, and no Retry-After header is documented

Serper

  1. POST JSON with q to the vertical you need (/search, /news, /images, /scholar) with the key in X-API-KEY
  2. Set gl and hl, since Google results vary by country and language
  3. Pair it with a fetcher. Serper returns links and snippets, not page text
  4. Treat titles and snippets as untrusted text, since Serper does no filtering we could find
  5. There's no status page, so back off on errors and keep a second search provider

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Kagi Search API or Serper?

Kagi Search API scores 48.7 (D) on agent readiness against Serper's 24.1 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Serper leads on reliability and payments & pricing.

Do Kagi Search API and Serper need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Kagi Search API and Serper without installing anything?

Yes. Kagi Search API has a hosted endpoint at https://kagi.com/api/v1/search and Serper at https://google.serper.dev/search.

Other comparisons with Kagi Search API or Serper

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