# Liner Search MCP vs SerpApi (slim)

> SerpApi scores 63.5 (B) to Liner Search MCP's 43.4 (E) for search serp. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serpapi.md (~4,450 tokens) · this version ~2,380 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serpapi.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-serpapi
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

SerpApi scores 63.5 (B) on agent readiness against Liner Search MCP's 43.4 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do search serp.

- Liner Search MCP: E 43.4, rank #1252 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/liner-mcp.min.md
- SerpApi: B 63.5, rank #512 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serpapi.min.md
- Liner Search MCP, good for Agents that need cheap cited search across the web and scholarly sources, with optional deep research reports.
- SerpApi, good for An agent that needs what a specific engine shows (Google verticals, Maps, Shopping, Flights, Scholar, YouTube, Amazon) parsed to JSON. Ahead on Reliability, 65 against 50; Schema & documentation, 67 against 45; Agent ergonomics, 88 against 65; Security & auth, 40 against 35; Payments & pricing, 30 against 20; Maintenance & community, 82 against 45; Transparency & trust, 84 against 34. Also Runs on your own machine.

| Category | Liner Search MCP | SerpApi |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 50 | 65 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 45 | 67 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 65 | 88 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 35 | 40 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 20 | 30 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 45 | 82 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 34 | 84 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Liner Search MCP | SerpApi |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Liner | SerpApi |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://platform.liner.com/api/v1/mcp` | `https://serpapi.com/search` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth | API key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| Tools exposed | 9 | 3 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| MCP registry | `com.liner/search` | `io.github.serpapi/serpapi-mcp` |
| Last release | none | 2026-10-30 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-08-27 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-08-27 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 175 stars, 169k npm/wk, 104k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Transparency & trust, SerpApi +50: Liner Search MCP 34 (Terms and privacy linked from the docs but not read in this batch (5 of 30). Data handling not read (5 of 30). No deprecation policy found for the MCP server; the docs note older endpoints priced per version (5 of 20). Subprocessors not read (5 of 20). 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 20.); SerpApi 84 (The API is closed under one terms-and-privacy page, and the MCP server is MIT (18). The legal page and the security page agree that search data is deleted after 31 days, ZeroTrace mode (an enterprise parameter) stores nothing, and a DPA is available on request (26). Deprecations show up as dated release notes, such as eBay's Sold and Completed filters on 28 September 2026, but there's no notice policy, and the terms allow termination without notice (8). Named subprocessors (AWS, Cloudflare, Wasabi, Stripe, Intercom and others) and US hosting with Standard Contractual Clauses (18).)
- Maintenance & community, SerpApi +37: Liner Search MCP 45 (Registry entry com.liner/search last updated 11 September 2026 (20). No dated changelog found (0). Support page linked from the docs (10 of 15). Official registry entry under its own namespace (15). No package to read (0). 20 + 0 + 10 + 15 + 0 = 45. Registry presence read from Anchor Terminal's own daily import of the official MCP registry (/api/v1/registry.json, 6 November 2026), not the registry's API.); SerpApi 82 (Release notes carry dated entries almost daily, the latest on 2 November 2026, and serpapi-python 1.2.0 shipped on 30 October (30). Since 4 August, serpapi-python 1.1.0, 1.1.1, 1.1.2 and 1.2.0, MCP server 1.0.3 and 2.0.0, and serpapi-cli 0.3.0, 0.4.0 and 0.5.0, besides the release notes (20). Release notes run several entries a week and the MCP repo merged a fix on 27 October. Open issues weren't read, since GitHub's pages refuse our reader (12). The MCP server is in the official registry as io.github.serpapi/serpapi-mcp and the Python SDK and CLI are current, but the JavaScript SDK's last release is still 2.2.1 of 26 July 2025 (12). The MCP, Python and CLI repositories run tests in CI; pass state not read (8).)
- Agent ergonomics, SerpApi +23: Liner Search MCP 65 (Nine tools (25). No paging or size controls documented (5 of 20). 429 codes documented for the API (8 of 20). All tools read; annotations not read (12 of 20). One URL with OAuth, few required inputs and an OpenAI-compatible API (15). 25 + 5 + 8 + 12 + 15 = 65.); SerpApi 88 (`json_restrictor` selects fields, `output=md` returns Markdown (the MCP README claims 50 per cent fewer tokens on average) and the MCP `compact` mode drops metadata. One core MCP tool plus two opt-in UI tools (22). `start`, `num`, location, language and engine-specific filters, plus `async` with the Search Archive API (20). Documented status codes and `search_metadata.status` values, though one 429 covers both the hourly limit and an empty balance (14). Searches are read-only, failed and cached searches aren't billed, and the MCP tool sets readOnlyHint true and destructiveHint false (18). Only `q` is required for most engines. llms.txt lists libraries in 11 languages, though the JavaScript one hasn't had a release since July 2025 (14).)
- Schema & documentation, SerpApi +22: Liner Search MCP 45 (Tool schemas not read without sign-in (15 of 25). llms.txt (10). A table says which tool fits which need, and that the domain tools return the same shape as search_web (12 of 20). Inputs not verifiable (3 of 15). Setup examples, no error responses (5 of 15). Registry version 1.0.0 since 11 September; no changelog found (0). 15 + 10 + 12 + 3 + 5 + 0 = 45.); SerpApi 67 (No OpenAPI or similar spec for the REST API. The MCP server publishes per-engine parameter lists as resources (`serpapi://engines/<engine>`), which we count as a partial contract (10). llms.txt, `pricing.md` and Markdown twins of the docs pages, such as search-api.md (10). Each engine page describes every parameter, and the MCP tool says when to use it but not when not to (14). Parameters list allowed values on the engine pages, but the MCP `search` tool takes one free-form `params` object (7). Examples on every engine page, and a status-and-errors page documents 400, 401, 403, 404, 410, 429 and 5xx with a JSON `error` field (14). Dated release notes with several entries a week, though the API itself isn't versioned (12).)
- Reliability, SerpApi +15: Liner Search MCP 50 (incident.io status page at status.liner.com with components for liner.com and app.liner.com only, none for the API or MCP (15). 100% uptime shown since August (20, no incidents shown). Rate limits published per API with numbers (Scholar Search 2 requests a second, agents 2 a second) (15). 429 with a code for concurrency limits, no Retry-After or backoff guidance found (0 of 15). No SLA found (0). Not labelled beta (0 of 10; 'limits may be adjusted over time', GA not stated). 15 + 20 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 50.); SerpApi 65 (Atlassian Statuspage at status.serpapi.com, with per-API components and incident history on its history pages and Atom feed (20). Between 4 August and 2 November the history lists 35 incidents active in the window. Two were wide failures that also list the general API component, each over an hour. From 7 to 9 August an outage across 37 Google and Google Light APIs, including Search, left 'a large number of requests' failing or timing out. On 10 September the vendor posted a 'service outage across all of our APIs', with degradation until 17 September. From 6 October a degradation of 15 Google and Google Light APIs, including Search, which the vendor called a 'partial service outage affecting multiple APIs', was still open on 2 November. Like the single-engine incidents, it hit part of the product and counts as minor. Two majors (5). Hourly throughput published per plan, 50 an hour free to 640,000 on Cloud 54M (15). 429 is documented as either the hourly limit or an empty search balance, with no Retry-After or backoff guidance found (5). The terms (updated 27 August 2026) promise a 99.95% SLA on all plans with credits up to 100% (10). GA (10). 20 + 5 + 15 + 5 + 10 + 10 = 65.)
- Payments & pricing, SerpApi +10: Liner Search MCP 20 (No machine payment protocol (0). Per-call prices public (20). No free tier found (0). A person signs up in a browser for OAuth or an API key (0). 0 + 20 + 0 + 0 = 20.); SerpApi 30 (No x402, MPP or L402 on the pricing page or llms.txt (0). Monthly plans are public with search counts, but there's no pay-per-search option (10). Free plan of 250 searches a month, no card (20). An account needs a browser signup (0).)