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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

Linkup vs You.com APIs

You.com APIs has a score of 76.9 (BB) against Linkup's 69.1 (B). Both do web search. The largest gap is security & auth, 21 points. Linkup accepts x402. You.com APIs doesn't.

LinkupLinkup · HTTP API B69.1/100#116 of 452 You.com APIsYou.com · HTTP API BB76.9/100#24 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Linkup for

  • schema & documentation (+6)

Pick You.com APIs for

  • reliability (+15)
  • agent ergonomics (+8)
  • security & auth (+21)
  • payments & pricing (+8)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLinkupYou.com APIsEdge
Reliability16%207085You.com APIs +15
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28882Linkup +6
Agent ergonomics13%16.27684You.com APIs +8
Security & auth14%17.53253You.com APIs +21
Payments & pricing10%12.58088You.com APIs +8
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88382Linkup +1
Transparency & trust7%8.86463Linkup +1
Negative events≤1500
Total69.1 · B76.9 · BB

Facts side by side

FactLinkupYou.com APIs
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorLinkupYou.com
Hosted endpointhttps://api.linkup.so/v1/searchhttps://api.you.com/v1/search
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdioHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402yes, from $0.01/callpayer tooling only
Licencenonenone
Tools exposed46
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryso.linkup.mcp/linkup-mcp-serverio.github.youdotcom-oss/mcp
Last release2026-09-302026-09-22
Popularity29 stars, 54k npm/wk, 84k PyPI/wk4.4k npm/wk, 92k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews4/5 (2)3.8/5 (8)

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.

You.com APIs

x402 and MPP on Web Search and Finance Research, with no account needed. Two API hosts. Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io.

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

You.com APIs

  1. 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
  2. Use https://api.you.com/mcp?profile=free to try search with no key (100 queries a day)
  3. Send Answer, Research and Finance Research to api.you.com. On ydc-index.io they fail with 'Missing Authentication Token'
  4. Pass ?tools= with only the tools you need to keep the MCP tool list short
  5. On 429, wait for Retry-After and watch X-RateLimit-Remaining before the next burst

Other comparisons with Linkup or You.com APIs

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