Head to head · Research search · October 2026 research run
Liner Search MCP vs You.com APIs
You.com APIs scores 76.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Liner Search MCP's 43.4 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do research search.
Best web search APIs for AI agents · All 326 search comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Agents that need cheap cited search across the web and scholarly sources, with optional deep research reports.
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where You.com APIs loses 3 points for them
Watch for
No free tier found
You.com APIs BB
Best for An unattended agent that needs search, page text and cited answers and wants to pay per call without an account.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 80 against 50
- Schema & documentation, 92 against 45
- Agent ergonomics, 83 against 65
- Security & auth, 59 against 35
- Payments & pricing, 88 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 45
- Transparency & trust, 67 against 34
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
Two API hosts. Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io
Why the edge
Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.
Payments & pricing You.com APIs +68
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.
You.com APIs 88
x402 (USDC on Base or Solana) and MPP (USDC on Tempo) on GET /v1/search, /v1/agents/search and POST /v1/finance_research. On 1 November an unpaid GET https://api.you.com/v1/search returned 402 with an x402 v2 PAYMENT-REQUIRED challenge for 5,000 base units of USDC on Base and on Solana and an MPP WWW-Authenticate: Payment challenge on Tempo, and an unpaid POST /v1/finance_research returned the same pair, with x402 at 110,000 base units. Contents, Answer and Research still need a key (28). Per-call and per-page prices published without a login (20). The pricing FAQ now says $10 of API credit on sign-up and $90 more on verifying the account, no card, with sign-up credits valid 60 days. The Web Search card on the same page says '$10 free credit' (20). The MCP free profile needs no key (100 queries a day), and x402 or MPP needs no account (20).
Schema & documentation You.com APIs +47
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.
You.com APIs 92
Public OpenAPI, one specification per API from the index at you.com/docs/openapi.json (25). llms.txt with Markdown twins of every page (10). A 'Choose the right API' page and MCP docs say which endpoint fits which job, and the MCP docs say there is no you-answer tool (15). Typed parameters in the OpenAPI, and the MCP rejects conflicting domain filters, such as include_domains with exclude_domains (12). The error reference covers 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 422, 429 and 500 with guidance per code, body examples and the host-split pitfall (15). Versioned paths (/v1) and a dated public API changelog at you.com/docs/changelog, linked from llms.txt, with entries from 15 July to 26 October 2026 (15).
Maintenance & community You.com APIs +40
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.
You.com APIs 85
@youdotcom-oss/mcp 4.0.7 tagged on 2026-10-28 and an API changelog entry on 26 October for the Inference Router (30). MCP 4.0.5, 4.0.6 and 4.0.7 between 19 and 28 October, all version-bump publishes, and API changelog entries on 4, 5 and 11 August, 2 and 23 September and 5, 7, 9 and 26 October (20). A dated public API changelog, support at api@you.com and a support page, and the MCP repo merges changes weekly. We didn't read the open issues (11). Listed in the official MCP registry as io.github.youdotcom-oss/mcp at 4.0.7, with a current Python SDK (3.6.0, 14 October). The TypeScript SDK is deprecated (15). CI, Semgrep and conventional commits on the MCP repo (9).
Transparency & trust You.com APIs +33
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.
You.com APIs 67
Closed API, with the MCP stdio bridge under MIT (18). The privacy policy (last updated 22 September 2026, re-read on 1 November) says prompts and outputs aren't used for training and a DPA is linked, but gives no retention periods. Zero Data Retention covers Web Search and Answer only, on enterprise agreements, not self-serve, and the machine payments page says it isn't available on keyless requests (17). No deprecation policy. The changelog dates one removal, the authors field from Web Search and Answer responses on 15 July 2026, announced as already done (5). The privacy policy names OpenAI, Anthropic and Google as model providers and points to trust.you.com for the full list, which we couldn't render. No data locations stated (10).
Reliability You.com APIs +30
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.
You.com APIs 80
Rootly status page at status.you.com with Search/Index, Live News and AI Search API components (20). Its robots.txt loaded on 1 November, but incident pages still answered with a Cloudflare challenge, so we read the history RSS feed as before. In the 90 days to 1 November it lists one incident, an 'Authentication Outage' on the AI Search API component posted on 5 October, and nothing after it. The feed gives no duration, so we couldn't establish the outage as a major. Minor only (20). 10 requests a second per API and 5 for Finance Research on self-serve accounts, re-read on 1 November (15). 429 carries Retry-After, the docs give exponential backoff capped at 60 seconds, and X-RateLimit-* headers allow client-side throttling (15). No SLA found for the search APIs. The pricing page banner claims an uptime SLA of at least 99.9% for the new Inference Router, but we found no SLA document (0). GA (10).
Security & auth You.com APIs +24
Liner Search MCP 35
OAuth 2.1 or an API key; scopes not published (20 of 30). All tools are reads (10 of 20). Results carry web pages and documents with no injection guidance (0). No audit log found (0). No security.txt (404) or security programme found (5 of 20). 20 + 10 + 0 + 0 + 5 = 35.
You.com APIs 59
Several keys per organisation in the X-API-Key header, revoked immediately on delete, rotation by create-then-delete, and roles where developers see only their own keys. The hosted MCP takes OAuth 2.1. No per-key scopes documented. No secret in a URL (22). Tool allow-lists on the MCP, a two-tool free profile and no tool that writes or deletes. Since 5 October a key can carry a spending cap per billing period, and a capped key answers 429 spend_cap_exceeded when it's reached, which bounds what a leaked or runaway key can spend, as kagi-search's per-key cap does (18). Search and Contents return untrusted page text. The only content control we found is safesearch, and no prompt-injection guidance (2). The key list shows a last-used date and each capped key's spend, and the troubleshooting page says Platform Logs list recent requests with error messages, response details and a request ID. No retention period, logs API or audit log of key actions was found, so 9, between numeral's 8 for a dashboard Logs tab and deepgram-stt's 10 for console and API logs (9). trust.you.com, a Vanta trust centre, links a vulnerability disclosure page and a subprocessor list but rendered only with JavaScript on 1 November, security.txt returned 404 on you.com, and the MCP repo runs Semgrep in CI (8).
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Liner Search MCP | You.com APIs | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 50 | 80 | You.com APIs +30 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 45 | 92 | You.com APIs +47 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 65 | 83 | You.com APIs +18 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 35 | 59 | You.com APIs +24 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 20 | 88 | You.com APIs +68 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 45 | 85 | You.com APIs +40 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 34 | 67 | You.com APIs +33 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| Total | E 43.4/100 | BB 76.1/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Liner Search MCP | You.com APIs |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Liner | You.com |
| Hosted endpoint | https://platform.liner.com/api/v1/mcp | https://api.you.com/v1/search |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| Price for research search | not published | $50 per 1,000 requests |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Tools exposed | 9 | 6 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | com.liner/search | io.github.youdotcom-oss/mcp |
| Last release | none | 2026-10-28 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2024-08-27 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-22 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | yes |
| Popularity | none | 4.4k npm/wk, 92k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.8/5 (8) |
How the scores have moved
Verdicts
Liner Search MCP
Liner's MCP server puts cheap per-call web, scholarly and vertical search and cited research agents behind one OAuth URL, at $1 per 1,000 searches. The docs say which tool fits which question, but there's no free tier, no changelog, no injection guidance and no status component for the API.
You.com APIs
x402 and MPP on Web Search and Finance Research, with no account needed, and keys can carry a spending cap. Two API hosts, so Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io, and Python SDK 3.6.0 changed the default search response in a minor release.
Before you call either
Liner Search MCP
- Use search_scholar for papers and the domain tools for legal, finance, medical or business questions
- Deep research is slower and costs more; use quick_answer_agent for short lookups
- Treat search results and research reports as untrusted content
- Keep under 2 requests a second for scholar search and the agents
You.com APIs
- For unattended runs call GET https://api.you.com/v1/search, handle the 402 and pay with x402. It's half the MPP price for search
- Use
https://api.you.com/mcp?profile=freeto try search with no key (100 queries a day) - Send Answer, Research and Finance Research to api.you.com. On ydc-index.io they fail with 'Missing Authentication Token'
- With Python SDK 3.6.0 or later, pass
knowledge=None, extraction=Noneon search unless you want highlights and knowledge cards, which are on by default and may cost more - Treat a 429 with
spend_cap_exceededas a budget stop, not a rate limit. Retrying won't clear it until the cap is raised
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Liner Search MCP or You.com APIs?
You.com APIs scores 76.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Liner Search MCP's 43.4 (E), and leads in every scored category.
Do Liner Search MCP and You.com APIs need an API key?
Liner Search MCP uses an OAuth sign-in. You.com APIs takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call Liner Search MCP and You.com APIs without installing anything?
Yes. Liner Search MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://platform.liner.com/api/v1/mcp and You.com APIs at https://api.you.com/v1/search.
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- Perplexity Search API vs You.com APIs
- SearchAPI.io vs You.com APIs
- SerpApi vs You.com APIs
- Serper vs You.com APIs
- SERPHouse vs You.com APIs
- SerpKite vs You.com APIs
- Tavily API + MCP vs You.com APIs
- TinyFish Search vs You.com APIs
- Valyu vs You.com APIs
- Arcmira vs Liner Search MCP
- Arcmira vs You.com APIs
- Exa API + MCP vs Liner Search MCP
- Grep AI vs Liner Search MCP
- Grep AI vs You.com APIs
- Liner Search MCP vs Linkup
- Liner Search MCP vs NewsCatcher
- Liner Search MCP vs Parallel Search and Task APIs
- Liner Search MCP vs Perplexity Search API
- Liner Search MCP vs SpecStream
- Liner Search MCP vs Tavily API + MCP
- Liner Search MCP vs TinyFish Search
- Liner Search MCP vs Valyu
- SpecStream vs You.com APIs
- Fetch (MCP reference server) vs You.com APIs
- NewsCatcher vs You.com APIs
- Liner Search MCP vs SearchAPI.io
- Liner Search MCP vs SerpApi
- Liner Search MCP vs Serper
- Liner Search MCP vs SERPHouse
- Liner Search MCP vs SerpKite
- Grounding with Bing Search vs Liner Search MCP
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/liner-mcp-vs-you-com-api.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/liner-mcp.json·/api/v1/tools/you-com-api.json - From a terminal
anchor compare liner-mcp you-com-api(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "liner-mcp", "b": "you-com-api"}at/mcp, no key