Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run
Mojeek Web Search API vs Serper
Mojeek Web Search API scores 36.4 (F) on agent readiness against Serper's 24.2 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Serper leads on security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do web search.
Best web search APIs for AI agents · All 308 search comparisons
Which one, for what
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
- Reliability, 45 against 30
- Schema & documentation, 29 against 6
- Agent ergonomics, 66 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 10 against 3
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 32
Watch for
The API key is documented only as a URL query parameter, and rotating a key means emailing the API team
Serper F
Best for High-volume Google SERP lookups on a tight budget where the agent already has a fetcher.
Ahead on
- Security & auth, 20 against 15
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
Also in its favour
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
No status page, SLA or incident history
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.
Transparency & trust Mojeek Web Search API +36
Mojeek Web Search API 68
Closed service with API terms naming Mojeek Limited under English law (15 of 30). The API page states 90-day retention, zero retention on request, no sub-processors and that Mojeek is the processor and the customer the controller, while the API terms say both parties are independent controllers under GDPR, and the privacy policy of 2 February 2022 covers only the website (12 of 30). The terms promise 30 days' notice of material changes and of price changes, but there is no deprecation policy or dated notices (5 of 20). The API page says there are no sub-processors and infrastructure is owned and run in Europe, in a UK data centre per the about page (18 of 20). 15 + 12 + 5 + 18 = 50.
Serper 32
Closed service. The terms exist (last updated 29 May 2024, UK law) but name no legal entity, only 'Serper' (8). The privacy policy (5 November 2025) says the service 'should normally not lead to the processing of personal data' and keeps account data for the life of the account, but states no retention period for queries or results (10). No deprecation policy or dated notices (0). Subprocessors are described by category (payments, email, hosting) without names, with transfers outside the EEA under Standard Contractual Clauses (5).
Agent ergonomics Mojeek Web Search API +31
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.
Serper 35
Responses are compact SERP JSON with no field selection or Markdown option found (10). Country and language parameters per the 30 September check, and ten separate verticals. We couldn't confirm pagination or result-count parameters from the docs (8). No documented error responses (0). Searches are read-only and only successful queries use credits, per the 30 September check of the home page (10). One required field (q) and no official SDK (7).
Schema & documentation Mojeek Web Search API +23
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.
Serper 6
No OpenAPI or other spec (0). serper.dev/llms.txt returns 404 and there are no Markdown docs (0). The documentation is the playground, a JavaScript page that showed us no text. Per the 30 September check it lists the verticals and parameters such as gl and hl, so a few points for descriptions (3) and typed inputs (3). No examples or error responses we could read (0). No changelog or API versioning (0).
Payments & pricing Serper +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.
Serper 40
No x402, MPP or L402. Card or PayPal only, per the 30 September check (0). Per-1,000 prices published without a login, from $1.00 on the $50 pack to $0.30 on the $3,750 pack (20). 2,500 free queries on sign-up with no card, confirmed on the home page (20). A person signs up in a browser (0).
Reliability Mojeek Web Search API +15
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.
Serper 30
No status page. status.serper.dev answers with a 302 to Atlassian's Statuspage marketing site (0). No readable incident history (5). Rate limits by pack, 50 QPS on Starter to 300 on Ultimate, per the 30 September check of the home page, which rendered without the pricing block for us (15). No 429 or retry guidance found (0). No SLA in the terms (0). GA (10).
Maintenance & community Mojeek Web Search API +7
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.
Serper 3
No changelog, release notes, SDK or package found, so no dated release or API change to count (0, 0). No public changelog. Support is by email per the privacy policy (3). No official SDKs (0). No packages or CI to assess (0).
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Mojeek Web Search API | Serper | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 45 | 30 | Mojeek Web Search API +15 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 29 | 6 | Mojeek Web Search API +23 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 66 | 35 | Mojeek Web Search API +31 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 15 | 20 | Serper +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 20 | 40 | Serper +20 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 10 | 3 | Mojeek Web Search API +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 68 | 32 | Mojeek Web Search API +36 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | F 36.4/100 | F 24.2/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Mojeek Web Search API | Serper |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Mojeek Limited | Serper |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | https://google.serper.dev/search |
| Transports | HTTP | |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| Price for web search | $2.68 per 1,000 requests | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Tools exposed | 0 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2024-05-29 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2022-02-02 | 2025-11-05 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |
How the scores have moved
Mojeek Web Search API
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
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.
Serper
$0.30 to $1.00 per 1,000 queries on prepaid packs, with no subscription. No status page, SLA or incident history.
Before you call either
Mojeek Web Search API
- Send
fmt=json, since the default response is XML - Read
response.statuson every call; a daily limit shows as 'ERROR: Daily Limit Reached' rather than an HTTP error - Set
lb,lbb,rbandrbbas the quickstart recommends, or results lean to no language or region - Keep the key out of logs and shared URLs, since it travels in the query string
- On the Startup plan, don't keep results for more than an hour
Serper
- POST JSON with
qto the vertical you need (/search,/news,/images,/scholar) with the key inX-API-KEY - Set
glandhl, since Google results vary by country and language - Pair it with a fetcher. Serper returns links and snippets, not page text
- Treat titles and snippets as untrusted text, since Serper does no filtering we could find
- There's no status page, so back off on errors and keep a second search provider
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Mojeek Web Search API or Serper?
Mojeek Web Search API scores 36.4 (F) on agent readiness against Serper's 24.2 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Serper leads on security & auth and payments & pricing.
Do Mojeek Web Search API and Serper need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call Mojeek Web Search API and Serper without installing anything?
No hosted endpoint is listed for Mojeek Web Search API. Serper has a hosted endpoint at https://google.serper.dev/search.
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- Mojeek Web Search API vs SerpKite
- Mojeek Web Search API vs SpecStream
- Mojeek Web Search API vs Tavily API + MCP
- Mojeek Web Search API vs TinyFish Search
- Mojeek Web Search API vs Valyu
- Mojeek Web Search API vs You.com APIs
- Parallel Search and Task APIs vs Serper
- Perplexity Search API vs Serper
- SearchAPI.io vs Serper
- SerpApi vs Serper
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- Serper vs SerpKite
- Serper vs SpecStream
- Serper vs Tavily API + MCP
- Serper vs TinyFish Search
- Serper vs Valyu
- Serper vs You.com APIs
- NewsCatcher vs Serper
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/mojeek-vs-serper.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/mojeek.json·/api/v1/tools/serper.json - From a terminal
anchor compare mojeek serper(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "mojeek", "b": "serper"}at/mcp, no key