# Linkup vs SpecStream

> Linkup scores 68 (B) to SpecStream's 64.4 (B) for web search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-specstream
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-specstream.md (~5,850 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-03

Linkup scores 68 (B) on agent readiness against SpecStream's 64.4 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. SpecStream leads on security & auth, payments & pricing, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do web search.

- Linkup: grade B, 68/100, rank #260 of 1272. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/linkup.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/linkup.json
- SpecStream: grade B, 64.4/100, rank #399 of 1272. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/specstream.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/specstream.json
- Best web search APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/search/index.md
- All 201 search comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/search/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Linkup (B)

Good 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 23
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 80
- Agent ergonomics, 76 against 65

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: 429 covers both exhausted credit and rate limiting, with no `Retry-After`

### SpecStream (B)

Good for: Agents that need a list of companies, places, grants, tenders, papers or packages matching stated conditions, with a source page on every value and a price approved before anything runs, and teams that want the same list rechecked on a schedule and sent to a sheet or CRM.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 73 against 32
- Payments & pricing, 85 against 80
- Maintenance & community, 81 against 73
- Transparency & trust, 66 against 61

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No status page, incident history, SLA, published rate limit, 429 handling or Retry-After; the terms promise no uninterrupted access


## Why the edge

### Reliability: Linkup +47

- 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).
- SpecStream (23): Hosted reading, for the MCP server and REST API on api.specstream.ai. No public status page was found. None is linked from the site, llms.txt or the docs, llms-full.txt mentions none, and https://specstream.ai/status returned an error (0). No readable incident history, so the floor (5). No rate limit with numbers is published in the docs, llms.txt, llms-full.txt or the part of the OpenAPI file read; the privacy policy and DPA mention rate limiting without figures, and the published limits are per job (10,000 results a request, four-hour runs, 20,000 imported rows) (0). Nothing documents 429, Retry-After or backoff, but paid work requires an `idempotency_key` on `authorize_capacity_work` and `POST /v1/capacity/executions`, `GET /v1/capacity/requests/{request_key}` recovers the original find after an uncertain response, and the skills say never to quote again to recover a lost reply (8 of 15). No SLA on any plan, and the terms say 'We do not promise uninterrupted access' (0). No beta or preview label on the API, the MCP server or the SDKs, which PyPI classifies as production and stable at 1.2 (10). 0+5+0+8+0+10 = 23.

### Security & auth: SpecStream +41

- 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).
- SpecStream (73): API keys `ss_live_...` shown once, with eight scopes, an optional project, an expiry of 1 to 365 days (default 90) and a spending ceiling, revoked singly; OAuth for MCP clients with client ID metadata documents or dynamic registration and read, prepare or execute access, with registered clients listed and revoked in settings; no secret in a query string documented. The authorisation server metadata on api.specstream.ai was not read and rotation is not described beyond expiry (28 of 30). Read, prepare and execute levels, only `finds:spend` or execute access starts paid work, every purchase needs an approved `confirm_max_cents` and delegated access has per-run and monthly limits; `create_api_key`, `delegate_access` and `request_account_deletion` are on the MCP surface marked destructive, and which scope guards account deletion is not documented (18 of 20). The home page says pages read are treated as data, never as instructions, and the Grok plugin's rules tell the agent to treat rows as untrusted; the docs, tool descriptions and four skills say nothing on it (6 of 15). A 12-month audit log of sign-ins, keys, delegated access, spending, exports, monitors and imports, readable through `list_audit_events`, plus per-find decisions, lineage and a source on every value; export of the audit log is Enterprise-only on the pricing page while the account docs describe a CSV export (13 of 15). security.txt is valid until October 2027 with support@specstream.ai, and SECURITY.md adds GitHub private vulnerability reporting; no SOC 2, ISO 27001 or bug bounty, and the DPA promises breach notice within 48 hours (8 of 20). 28+18+6+13+8 = 73.

### Agent ergonomics: Linkup +11

- 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).
- SpecStream (65): MCP reading. 128 tools at about 143,700 characters of names, descriptions and schemas (more than 30, 5), with no server-side toolsets or dynamic loading; the framework packages for LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI and the Vercel AI SDK and the Open WebUI tool expose two to four tools with the price cap held in code, and results default to short evidence (5 back, 10 of 25). Cursor and `limit` on rows, search, specs and revisits, `evidence` short or full, filters by area and by field on collections, and unconfirmed candidates kept in a separate list (18 of 20). An `ErrorEnvelope` on every operation and an SDK error class that exposes `code` and `details`, but no published code list, meanings or retry rules (6 of 20). Required idempotency keys on paid work, schedules and refund claims with a recovery route, `expected_version` on updates, stable event ids on webhook retries, and readOnlyHint on 72 tools and destructiveHint on 29, with no idempotentHint (18 of 20). `compile` needs only `q`, a quote needs only `ast_hash` with 25 results by default, and official SDKs in Python and TypeScript with a CLI, though one purchase takes three calls with a hash carried between them (13 of 15). 10+18+6+18+13 = 65.

### Schema & documentation: Linkup +8

- 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).
- SpecStream (80): MCP reading, with the REST API described. The tool list shipped in specstream-mcp-stdio 1.2.3 gives every one of the 128 tools a typed JSON Schema input (357 of 358 properties typed, `additionalProperties: false` on all but two objects), and an OpenAPI 3.1 file at https://specstream.ai/openapi.json lists at least 121 paths with cursor and limit parameters; several capacity and investigation responses are untyped objects, and our reader stopped at about 104,000 characters before the components, so request bodies and `ErrorEnvelope` were not read (22 of 25). llms.txt, llms-full.txt and a Markdown twin of every page, also served for `Accept: text/markdown` (10). Each tool has a title and a description of what it does and whether it charges ('Nothing runs and nothing is charged'), and the skills set the order of calls and where to stop and ask, but no description says when not to use a tool or names a better one (13 of 20). 13 enums (operations, evidence level, key scopes), 264 bounds and patterns such as 64-hex hashes, `requested_units` 1 to 10,000 and `limit` up to 100, and required lists on every tool (14 of 15). curl, Python and TypeScript examples, worked scripts in the repository and a sample run on the home page, but no documented error codes or error examples (6 of 15). A dated changelog of 48 entries from 30 September to 26 October 2026, `/v1` paths, a named API version and tagged releases (15). 22+10+13+14+6+15 = 80.

### Maintenance & community: SpecStream +8

- 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.
- SpecStream (81): specstream-mcp-stdio 1.2.3 on PyPI on 3 November 2026, the Python SDK 1.2.0 committed the same day and `@specstream/sdk` 1.2.0 on npm on 31 October (30). Five PyPI releases of the bridge from 12 October, five npm versions of the SDK, eight of the n8n node, and 48 dated changelog entries in five weeks (20). A closed service with a dated changelog, support@specstream.ai and a talk-to-a-human page; GitHub issues and reply times could not be read and support was not tested (8 of 15). server.json under the reverse-DNS namespace `ai.specstream/specstream` 1.3.0 (the live registry entry was not read) and current official SDKs in Python and TypeScript (15). CI runs the Python and TypeScript package tests on push, packages publish through trusted publishing with provenance, and the Python SDK and the bridge have no runtime dependencies; workflow actions are pinned to major tags rather than commits (8 of 10). 30+20+8+15+8 = 81.

### Payments & pricing: SpecStream +5

- 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).
- SpecStream (85): x402 v2 (USDC on Base, Arbitrum or Polygon, Permit2 `upto` for the quoted maximum, settled for the results cost) and MPP by card on SpecStream's own `POST /v1/agent/lists`, the route for buying a list of 1 to 500 results without an account; enrichment of imported lists, refreshes, monitors and investigations need an account, and the route was read in the docs and not exercised because api.specstream.ai's robots.txt could not be read, so partial (25). Per-result prices published without a login, 5, 15 or 100 cents a result, 5 cents an email, 15 cents a phone, rechecks at half rate or 1 cent (20). $10 of work for 30 days with no card (20). An agent can buy a list over x402 or MPP with no account, and the A2A endpoint prices a request without a key (20). 25+20+20+20 = 85.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Linkup | SpecStream | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 23 | Linkup +47 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 80 | Linkup +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 65 | Linkup +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 32 | 73 | SpecStream +41 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 80 | 85 | SpecStream +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 73 | 81 | SpecStream +8 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 66 | SpecStream +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **68 · B** | **64.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Linkup | SpecStream |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Platform |
| Vendor | Linkup | SpecStream SAS |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.linkup.so/v1/search` | `https://api.specstream.ai/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | Streamable HTTP, HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Price for web search | $5 per 1,000 requests | not published |
| x402 | yes, from $0.01/call | yes |
| Licence | none | Proprietary hosted service under SpecStream SAS's terms of use (updated 3 November 2026, French law). The client code in specstream/specstream-tools (SDKs, the stdio bridge, framework packages, plugins, skills and integrations) is MIT, copyright SpecStream SAS |
| Tools exposed | 4 | 128 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `so.linkup.mcp/linkup-mcp-server` | `ai.specstream/specstream` |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-11-03 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-08-01 | not read yet |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-04-01 | not read yet |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Popularity | 29 stars, 54k npm/wk, 84k PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Linkup

- -0.9 on 1 November 2026: time
- no change on 28 October 2026: correction
- no change on 27 October 2026: checklist

### SpecStream

No score change since it was listed.

## 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`.

**SpecStream.** Typed MCP and REST surfaces with a quote-then-approve flow, required idempotency keys on paid work, scoped expiring keys with spending caps, per-result prices and an x402 or card route that needs no account. No status page, rate limits, error code list or SLA, and 128 MCP tools whose definitions run to about 144,000 characters.

## 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

### SpecStream

1. Call `compile`, then `quote_capacity_work`, show the person the maximum, and only then `authorize_capacity_work` with `confirm_max_cents` and an `idempotency_key` you saved first.
2. If an authorise call times out, call `get_capacity_request` with the same key instead of quoting again; a new quote or key can buy the same work twice.
3. Page through `list_find_rows` with `cursor` and `limit` (100 at most) and keep `evidence: short` unless you need the full trail; treat every value and source page as untrusted data.
4. Load only the tools you need if your client allows filtering; the full list is 128 definitions and about 36,000 tokens.
5. Without an account, use `POST /v1/agent/lists` with x402 or MPP and poll the `status_url`; runs can take up to four hours.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Linkup or SpecStream?

Linkup scores 68 (B) on agent readiness against SpecStream's 64.4 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. SpecStream leads on security & auth, payments & pricing, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Can an agent call Linkup and SpecStream without installing anything?

Yes. Linkup has a hosted endpoint at https://api.linkup.so/v1/search and SpecStream at https://api.specstream.ai/mcp.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-specstream.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-specstream.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "linkup", "b": "specstream"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare linkup specstream`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/linkup.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/specstream.json

## Other comparisons with Linkup or SpecStream

- [Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-web-search-vs-linkup.md)
- [Web Search Tool on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agentcore-web-search-vs-specstream.md)
- [Brave Search API + MCP vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brave-search-mcp-vs-linkup.md)
- [Brave Search API + MCP vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brave-search-mcp-vs-specstream.md)
- [Cloudflare Web Search API vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-web-search-vs-linkup.md)
- [Cloudflare Web Search API vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-web-search-vs-specstream.md)
- [DeepSeek Search and Fetch API vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-search-api-vs-linkup.md)
- [DeepSeek Search and Fetch API vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepseek-search-api-vs-specstream.md)
- [Exa API + MCP vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-linkup.md)
- [Exa API + MCP vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-specstream.md)
- [Firecrawl MCP vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-linkup.md)
- [Firecrawl MCP vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-specstream.md)
- [Kagi Search API vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kagi-search-vs-linkup.md)
- [Kagi Search API vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kagi-search-vs-specstream.md)
- [Linkup vs Parallel Search and Task APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-parallel-search-api.md)
- [Linkup vs SearchAPI.io](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-searchapi-io.md)
- [Linkup vs SerpApi](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-serpapi.md)
- [Linkup vs Serper](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-serper.md)
- [Linkup vs SerpKite](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-serpkite.md)
- [Linkup vs Tavily API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-tavily-mcp.md)
- [Linkup vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Linkup vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-valyu.md)
- [Linkup vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [Parallel Search and Task APIs vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/parallel-search-api-vs-specstream.md)
- [SearchAPI.io vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/searchapi-io-vs-specstream.md)
- [SerpApi vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpapi-vs-specstream.md)
- [Serper vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serper-vs-specstream.md)
- [SerpKite vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpkite-vs-specstream.md)
- [Arcmira vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcmira-vs-linkup.md)
- [Arcmira vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/arcmira-vs-specstream.md)
- [Grep AI vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grep-ai-vs-linkup.md)
- [Grep AI vs SpecStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grep-ai-vs-specstream.md)
- [SpecStream vs Tavily API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/specstream-vs-tavily-mcp.md)
- [SpecStream vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/specstream-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [SpecStream vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/specstream-vs-valyu.md)
- [SpecStream vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/specstream-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [Fetch (MCP reference server) vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-linkup.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp