# Liner Search MCP vs You.com APIs (slim)

> You.com scores 76.1 (BB) to Liner Search MCP's 43.4 (E) for research search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-you-com-api.md (~4,900 tokens) · this version ~2,680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-you-com-api.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liner-mcp-vs-you-com-api
- 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)

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.

- Liner Search MCP: E 43.4, rank #1252 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/liner-mcp.min.md
- You.com APIs: BB 76.1, rank #48 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/you-com-api.min.md
- Liner Search MCP, good for Agents that need cheap cited search across the web and scholarly sources, with optional deep research reports. Also No incidents deducted, where You.com APIs loses 3 points for them.
- You.com APIs, good 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 Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Runs on your own machine; Free to start without a card.

| Category | Liner Search MCP | You.com APIs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 50 | 80 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 45 | 92 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 65 | 83 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 35 | 59 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 20 | 88 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 45 | 85 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 34 | 67 |

| Fact (where they differ) | 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 |
| 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) |

Why the edge:
- 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).)