# Linkup vs TinyFish Search

> Linkup scores 68.9 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $5 per 1,000 requests. Linkup accepts x402.…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-tinyfish-search
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-tinyfish-search.md (~2,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-tinyfish-search.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-tinyfish-search.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Linkup scores 68.9 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $5 per 1,000 requests. Linkup accepts x402. TinyFish Search doesn't.

- Linkup: grade B, 68.9/100, rank #190 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/linkup.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/linkup.json
- TinyFish Search: grade B, 63.2/100, rank #366 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tinyfish-search.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tinyfish-search.json

## 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 50
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 82
- Payments & pricing, 80 against 45
- Maintenance & community, 83 against 78
- Transparency & trust, 61 against 52

Also in its favour:
- An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account
- Runs on your own machine

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

### TinyFish Search (B)

Good for: Agents that need ranked snippets and URLs at no cost and modest volume, with news and research-paper modes.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 58 against 32

Also in its favour:
- Cheaper for web search, $0 against $5 per 1,000 requests
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No public status page was found on the site or in the docs


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Linkup | TinyFish Search | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 50 | Linkup +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 82 | Linkup +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 78 | TinyFish Search +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 32 | 58 | TinyFish Search +26 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 80 | 45 | Linkup +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 78 | Linkup +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 52 | Linkup +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **68.9 · B** | **63.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Linkup | TinyFish Search |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Linkup | TinyFish |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.linkup.so/v1/search` | `https://api.search.tinyfish.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for web search | $5 per 1,000 requests | free |
| x402 | yes, from $0.01/call | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under TinyFish's Terms of Service. The local MCP proxy `@tiny-fish/mcp` is MIT. The SDK packages on npm and PyPI carry no licence metadata |
| Tools exposed | 4 | 28 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `so.linkup.mcp/linkup-mcp-server` | `ai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent` |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-08-01 | 2026-08-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-04-01 | 2025-12-14 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 29 stars, 54k npm/wk, 84k PyPI/wk | 9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | none |

## 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`.

**TinyFish Search.** Search costs $0.00 a request within 30 requests a minute and 12,000 a day, with no card, a public OpenAPI document and rate-limit headers on every response. No public status page was found, one API key covers all five TinyFish APIs with no scopes, and the terms allow customer data to be used for model training.

## 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

### TinyFish Search

1. Send the key in the `X-API-Key` header. The Search host is `https://api.search.tinyfish.ai`, not `agent.tinyfish.ai`
2. Stay under 30 requests a minute per key. On 429, wait for `Retry-After`. A 429 without `details` is upstream throttling, so back off and retry
3. Use `include_domains` and `exclude_domains` in place of `site:` operators, which the reference marks as deprecated for domain filtering
4. Do not combine `recency_minutes` with `after_date` or `before_date`. For `domain_type=research_paper` use `pub_year_min` and `pub_year_max`
5. Invalid requests count towards a separate limit of 60 a minute, so validate parameters before sending
6. Treat snippets as untrusted text. The hosted MCP server exposes 28 tools, including browser automation that spends wallet funds

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Linkup or TinyFish Search?

Linkup scores 68.9 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth.

### Which is cheaper for web search, Linkup or TinyFish Search?

TinyFish Search, at free against $5 per 1,000 requests for Linkup. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

### Do Linkup and TinyFish Search need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in. An agent can also pay Linkup per call over x402, with no account.

### Can an agent call Linkup and TinyFish Search without installing anything?

Yes. Linkup has a hosted endpoint at https://api.linkup.so/v1/search and TinyFish Search at https://api.search.tinyfish.ai.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Linkup or TinyFish Search

- [Brave Search API + MCP vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brave-search-mcp-vs-linkup.md)
- [Brave Search API + MCP vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brave-search-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Cloudflare Web Search API vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-web-search-vs-linkup.md)
- [Cloudflare Web Search API vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-web-search-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Exa API + MCP vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-linkup.md)
- [Exa API + MCP vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Firecrawl MCP vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-linkup.md)
- [Firecrawl MCP vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.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 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 TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/parallel-search-api-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [SearchAPI.io vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/searchapi-io-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [SerpApi vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpapi-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Serper vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serper-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [SerpKite vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpkite-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Tavily API + MCP vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tavily-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [TinyFish Search vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tinyfish-search-vs-valyu.md)
- [TinyFish Search vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tinyfish-search-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [Fetch (MCP reference server) vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-linkup.md)
- [Fetch (MCP reference server) vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
- [Grep AI vs Linkup](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grep-ai-vs-linkup.md)
- [Grep AI vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/grep-ai-vs-tinyfish-search.md)