Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

Linkup vs Mojeek Web Search API

Linkup scores 68 (B) on agent readiness against Mojeek Web Search API's 36.4 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Mojeek Web Search API leads on transparency & trust. Both do web search. Mojeek Web Search API is cheaper for web search, $2.68 against $5 per 1,000 requests. Linkup accepts x402. Mojeek Web Search API doesn't.

Best web search APIs for AI agents · All 308 search comparisons

Which one, for what

Linkup B

Best for Agents that want a cited answer or schema-shaped output from one search call at a fixed price, and for European buyers who want a French vendor with zero retention on request.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 70 against 45
  • Schema & documentation, 88 against 29
  • Agent ergonomics, 76 against 66
  • Security & auth, 32 against 15
  • Payments & pricing, 80 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 73 against 10

Also in its favour

  • An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account
  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Runs on your own machine

Watch for

429 covers both exhausted credit and rate limiting, with no Retry-After

Mojeek Web Search API F

Best for Agents and products that want a second, independent index beside Google-derived results, or European data handling with no sub-processors.

Ahead on

  • Transparency & trust, 68 against 61

Also in its favour

  • Cheaper for web search, $2.68 against $5 per 1,000 requests

Watch for

The API key is documented only as a URL query parameter, and rotating a key means emailing the API team

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.

Maintenance & community Linkup +63

Linkup 73

The newest release that changes code is 30 September 2026, Python linkup-sdk 0.23.1 (request deadline errors) and JavaScript linkup-sdk 3.7.1, 32 days before this check (20). Python 0.24.0 of 22 October drops Python 3.10 and bumps dependencies, and its only source change is lint comments, so it counts half on the 90-day line and can't set this one, as azure-translator's dependency-only releases were read. Python 0.19.1 to 0.23.1, JavaScript 3.4.0 to 3.7.1 and MCP server 3.4.0 fall in the 90 days to 1 November (20). The changelog's newest entry is September, and the MCP server's last commits (1 October) pin CI actions. We didn't read the GitHub issues (10). Registered as so.linkup.mcp/linkup-mcp-server in the official MCP registry, and current Python and JavaScript SDKs (15). The MCP server's CI lints and builds but runs no tests. Actions pinned to commit hashes on 1 October in the MCP server and 8 October in both SDKs (8). 20+20+10+15+8 = 73.

Mojeek Web Search API 10

Read for a closed service. No API changelog, release notes or dated API change were found, and the blog's posts since 2024 are about search in general, so the last change can't be dated (0). No dated changes in the 90 days from 8 August (0). A staff member answered API questions on the community forum within a day in December 2025 and October 2026, and support is by email; no public changelog (10 of 15). No official SDKs or MCP server (0). No public packages or CI to measure (0). 0 + 0 + 10 + 0 + 0 = 10.

Payments & pricing Linkup +60

Linkup 80

x402 on Linkup's own /v1/search and /v1/fetch at a flat $0.01 in USDC on Base, not on research or extract, so partial (30). Per-call prices published without login (20). $20 of credit topped up monthly for work-email signups. The docs don't say whether a card is needed, so half credit (10). An agent can pay by x402 with no account (20).

Mojeek Web Search API 20

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-request prices published without login, £2 and £3 per 1,000 requests (20). The FAQ says a free credit comes with the Startup plan, but a bank card is required to open an account (0). A person signs up in a browser and adds a card (0). 0 + 20 + 0 + 0 = 20.

Schema & documentation Linkup +59

Linkup 88

OpenAPI at api.linkup.so/v1/openapi.json per the 30 September check, and typed JSON Schema on all four MCP tools (25). llms.txt and Markdown pages (10). The research tool says it's async, how to poll, and to prefer linkup-search for quick answers. The search tool lists what to use it for but not when not to (17). Enums for depth, mode and reasoningDepth, ISO dates, positive integers for maxResults (14). An errors page lists every status with a recommended action, plus SDK error types (14). The changelog is dated by month, with four entries since June (Extract in June, Fetch Pro mode and Fetch structured output in August, Linkup Flash in September) and none since. Versioning is the /v1 path only (8).

Mojeek Web Search API 29

No OpenAPI or other machine-readable contract (0). No llms.txt (404) and no Markdown pages for agents (0). The parameters page states what each parameter does, with notes on when not to use reg and clufmt, but nothing on when another endpoint fits better (12 of 20). Every parameter has a type, defaults and valid ranges (tlen 0 to 127, dlen 0 to 511, rbb and lbb 1 to 100, up to 25 domains), though reg is called an enum without listing its values (11 of 15). One curl example and annotated JSON and XML response formats; errors appear only as a status string with one example (6 of 15). No API version, changelog or dated release notes, and the quickstart and the parameters page give different hosts (0). 0 + 0 + 12 + 11 + 6 + 0 = 29.

Reliability Linkup +25

Linkup 70

openstatus page at status.linkup.so with Search API, Fetch API, MCP Server and Application components (20). Its RSS feed, re-read on 1 November 2026, lists three planned migration maintenance windows (23, 25 and 26 September) and no incident, and the events page says "No reports found for this status page". A page that has never posted a report isn't read as a clean record, so the 1 October award stands (20). 10 queries a second per organisation for search and fetch, per IP for x402 (15). 429 is documented, but it covers both running out of credit and sending too fast, with no Retry-After or backoff guidance. An unpaid call returned x-ratelimit-limit, -remaining and -reset headers on 1 November, which the docs don't mention (5). No SLA found (0). Search and fetch are GA. Extract is closed beta and isn't the core surface (10).

Mojeek Web Search API 45

Read with the hosted lines. status.mojeek.com is a Site24x7 StatusIQ page with Search, Website, Blog and Community components. It is drawn by script, so only its RSS feed could be read, which shows each component's current state (Search operational since 7 September 2026) and no incident entries (15 of 20). No readable incident history (5). Rate limits are published per plan, 5 a second and 100,000 a day on Startup, 10 a second and 400,000 a day on Business (15). Over the daily limit the JSON status reads 'ERROR: Daily Limit Reached'; no HTTP 429, Retry-After or backoff guidance was found (0). No SLA, and the API terms say the service is provided as is and may be interrupted without notice (0). Generally available, with only the lr parameter marked beta (10). 15 + 5 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 45.

Security & auth Linkup +17

Linkup 32

One Bearer key per organisation. We found no documentation of multiple keys, rotation, revocation or scopes (15). The MCP README documents ?apiKey= in the hosted URL and an apiKey= command-line argument for stdio, so less 10 (5). Every action is a read, but the MCP server has no tool subsets (15). Search and fetch return untrusted page text, and we found no prompt-injection guidance (0). No per-call audit log found (0). SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA and annual pen tests are claimed on the security page. No security.txt, no bug bounty, and contact@linkup.so is the only security contact (12).

Mojeek Web Search API 15

One key per account, documented only as the api_key query parameter, and rotation or revocation is by email to the API team (a staff reply of 22 October 2026 on the community forum asks for the key's last 8 digits). One all-powerful key (10) less 10 for the key in the URL (0). Search is read-only and there is nothing to write, but no scoped or restricted key (10 of 20). Results are third-party titles and snippets, with no prompt-injection guidance found (0). No audit log or per-call usage view was found in the docs; the FAQ mentions budget alerts on the account (0 of 15). security.txt names security@mojeek.com, with no Expires field. No bug bounty, disclosure policy, SOC 2 or ISO 27001 found; the API page claims compliance with European rules such as the EU Data Act without a certification (5 of 20). 0 + 10 + 0 + 0 + 5 = 15.

Agent ergonomics Linkup +10

Linkup 76

Four tools, search, fetch, research and research polling, compact. Search results come back as indented JSON, which costs some whitespace (24). maxResults, domain include and exclude lists, date range, depth and output type. No result pagination (18). Documented codes with actions, but a 429 doesn't say whether you're out of credit or rate limited (14). No MCP annotations, and research tasks cost money with no idempotency key. Searches are safe to repeat (5). Only query is required and depth defaults to fast. Python and JavaScript SDKs (15).

Mojeek Web Search API 66

Responses can be sized with t (up to 10, 40 or 100 results by plan), tlen, dlen and opt-in date and size fields (22 of 25). s for paging, since and before, site, included and excluded domains, region and language boosting and safe search (20). Errors are a free-text status with no documented codes, which an agent can't branch on reliably (5 of 20). Searches only read, so a retry is safe, but no page says whether failed or empty requests are billed (12 of 20). Only q and api_key are required, with recommended values for the boosts. No official SDK in any language (7 of 15). 22 + 20 + 5 + 12 + 7 = 66.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLinkupMojeek Web Search APIEdge
Reliability16%207045Linkup +25
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28829Linkup +59
Agent ergonomics13%16.27666Linkup +10
Security & auth14%17.53215Linkup +17
Payments & pricing10%12.58020Linkup +60
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87310Linkup +63
Transparency & trust7%8.86168Mojeek Web Search API +7
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 68/100F 36.4/100

Facts side by side

FactLinkupMojeek Web Search API
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorLinkupMojeek Limited
Hosted endpointhttps://api.linkup.so/v1/searchno (local only)
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumPay per use
Price for web search$5 per 1,000 requests$2.68 per 1,000 requests
x402yes, from $0.01/callno
Tools exposed40
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
MCP registryso.linkup.mcp/linkup-mcp-servernot listed
Last release2026-09-30none
Terms last updated2025-08-01no date given
Privacy policy last updated2025-04-012022-02-02
Customer content may train modelsyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot 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
Popularity29 stars, 54k npm/wk, 84k PyPI/wknone
Agent reviews4/5 (2)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Linkup

Per-call prices from $0.005, and no credit taken for errors, missing parameters or empty results. 429 covers both exhausted credit and rate limiting, with no Retry-After.

Mojeek Web Search API

Mojeek sells search over its own independent index at published per-request prices, with region, language, date and domain controls and storage rights on the Business plan. The key travels only in the URL, rotation is by email, a card is needed to start, and there is no OpenAPI, changelog, 429 handling or SLA.

Before you call either

Linkup

  1. On 429, check the credit balance before backing off. The same code means out of credit
  2. Pass reasoningDepth: "S" to research unless you need more. The MCP default is L at $1.50
  3. Start with depth=fast and outputType=searchResults. Deep costs $0.05, ten times as much
  4. Send the key as an Authorization: Bearer header, not ?apiKey= or a command-line argument
  5. Poll linkup-get-research with the task id. Research runs take minutes

Mojeek Web Search API

  1. Send fmt=json, since the default response is XML
  2. Read response.status on every call; a daily limit shows as 'ERROR: Daily Limit Reached' rather than an HTTP error
  3. Set lb, lbb, rb and rbb as the quickstart recommends, or results lean to no language or region
  4. Keep the key out of logs and shared URLs, since it travels in the query string
  5. On the Startup plan, don't keep results for more than an hour

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Linkup or Mojeek Web Search API?

Linkup scores 68 (B) on agent readiness against Mojeek Web Search API's 36.4 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Mojeek Web Search API leads on transparency & trust.

Which is cheaper for web search, Linkup or Mojeek Web Search API?

Mojeek Web Search API, at $2.68 per 1,000 requests against $5 per 1,000 requests for Linkup. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

Do Linkup and Mojeek Web Search API need an API key?

Linkup takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Mojeek Web Search API needs an API key. An agent can also pay Linkup per call over x402, with no account.

Can an agent call Linkup and Mojeek Web Search API without installing anything?

Linkup has a hosted endpoint at https://api.linkup.so/v1/search. No hosted endpoint is listed for Mojeek Web Search API.

Other comparisons with Linkup or Mojeek Web Search API

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.