Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

Mojeek Web Search API vs You.com APIs

You.com APIs scores 76.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Mojeek Web Search API's 36.4 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do web search. Mojeek Web Search API is cheaper for web search, $2.68 against $5 per 1,000 requests.

Best web search APIs for AI agents · All 326 search comparisons

Which one, for what

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.

Also in its favour

  • Cheaper for web search, $2.68 against $5 per 1,000 requests
  • No incidents deducted, where You.com APIs loses 3 points for them

Watch for

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

You.com APIs BB

Best for An unattended agent that needs search, page text and cited answers and wants to pay per call without an account.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 80 against 45
  • Schema & documentation, 92 against 29
  • Agent ergonomics, 83 against 66
  • Security & auth, 59 against 15
  • Payments & pricing, 88 against 20
  • Maintenance & community, 85 against 10

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Runs on your own machine
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

Two API hosts. Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io

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 You.com APIs +75

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.

You.com APIs 85

@youdotcom-oss/mcp 4.0.7 tagged on 2026-10-28 and an API changelog entry on 26 October for the Inference Router (30). MCP 4.0.5, 4.0.6 and 4.0.7 between 19 and 28 October, all version-bump publishes, and API changelog entries on 4, 5 and 11 August, 2 and 23 September and 5, 7, 9 and 26 October (20). A dated public API changelog, support at api@you.com and a support page, and the MCP repo merges changes weekly. We didn't read the open issues (11). Listed in the official MCP registry as io.github.youdotcom-oss/mcp at 4.0.7, with a current Python SDK (3.6.0, 14 October). The TypeScript SDK is deprecated (15). CI, Semgrep and conventional commits on the MCP repo (9).

Payments & pricing You.com APIs +68

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.

You.com APIs 88

x402 (USDC on Base or Solana) and MPP (USDC on Tempo) on GET /v1/search, /v1/agents/search and POST /v1/finance_research. On 1 November an unpaid GET https://api.you.com/v1/search returned 402 with an x402 v2 PAYMENT-REQUIRED challenge for 5,000 base units of USDC on Base and on Solana and an MPP WWW-Authenticate: Payment challenge on Tempo, and an unpaid POST /v1/finance_research returned the same pair, with x402 at 110,000 base units. Contents, Answer and Research still need a key (28). Per-call and per-page prices published without a login (20). The pricing FAQ now says $10 of API credit on sign-up and $90 more on verifying the account, no card, with sign-up credits valid 60 days. The Web Search card on the same page says '$10 free credit' (20). The MCP free profile needs no key (100 queries a day), and x402 or MPP needs no account (20).

Schema & documentation You.com APIs +63

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.

You.com APIs 92

Public OpenAPI, one specification per API from the index at you.com/docs/openapi.json (25). llms.txt with Markdown twins of every page (10). A 'Choose the right API' page and MCP docs say which endpoint fits which job, and the MCP docs say there is no you-answer tool (15). Typed parameters in the OpenAPI, and the MCP rejects conflicting domain filters, such as include_domains with exclude_domains (12). The error reference covers 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 422, 429 and 500 with guidance per code, body examples and the host-split pitfall (15). Versioned paths (/v1) and a dated public API changelog at you.com/docs/changelog, linked from llms.txt, with entries from 15 July to 26 October 2026 (15).

Security & auth You.com APIs +44

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.

You.com APIs 59

Several keys per organisation in the X-API-Key header, revoked immediately on delete, rotation by create-then-delete, and roles where developers see only their own keys. The hosted MCP takes OAuth 2.1. No per-key scopes documented. No secret in a URL (22). Tool allow-lists on the MCP, a two-tool free profile and no tool that writes or deletes. Since 5 October a key can carry a spending cap per billing period, and a capped key answers 429 spend_cap_exceeded when it's reached, which bounds what a leaked or runaway key can spend, as kagi-search's per-key cap does (18). Search and Contents return untrusted page text. The only content control we found is safesearch, and no prompt-injection guidance (2). The key list shows a last-used date and each capped key's spend, and the troubleshooting page says Platform Logs list recent requests with error messages, response details and a request ID. No retention period, logs API or audit log of key actions was found, so 9, between numeral's 8 for a dashboard Logs tab and deepgram-stt's 10 for console and API logs (9). trust.you.com, a Vanta trust centre, links a vulnerability disclosure page and a subprocessor list but rendered only with JavaScript on 1 November, security.txt returned 404 on you.com, and the MCP repo runs Semgrep in CI (8).

Reliability You.com APIs +35

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.

You.com APIs 80

Rootly status page at status.you.com with Search/Index, Live News and AI Search API components (20). Its robots.txt loaded on 1 November, but incident pages still answered with a Cloudflare challenge, so we read the history RSS feed as before. In the 90 days to 1 November it lists one incident, an 'Authentication Outage' on the AI Search API component posted on 5 October, and nothing after it. The feed gives no duration, so we couldn't establish the outage as a major. Minor only (20). 10 requests a second per API and 5 for Finance Research on self-serve accounts, re-read on 1 November (15). 429 carries Retry-After, the docs give exponential backoff capped at 60 seconds, and X-RateLimit-* headers allow client-side throttling (15). No SLA found for the search APIs. The pricing page banner claims an uptime SLA of at least 99.9% for the new Inference Router, but we found no SLA document (0). GA (10).

Agent ergonomics You.com APIs +17

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.

You.com APIs 83

Six MCP tools per the docs, which state there is no you-answer tool, with ?tools= or X-Allowed-Tools to load a subset, a default allow-list of four, and a free profile that exposes two. Web Search returns up to 100 results with extraction opt-in (25). Result count, domain include, exclude and boost lists, safesearch, and since 9 October a total_max_tokens budget of 1,024 to 8,192 on highlights, which the changelog says brings a 10-result response under 1,000 tokens (20). Each error code says what to do next, and 402 says whether to add credits or pay the challenge (20). Search is read-only and a 402 can be retried once paid. We couldn't see MCP annotations, since the hosted server's source isn't public (8). Few required parameters, but Web Search and Contents live on ydc-index.io while Answer and Research run only on api.you.com, and the only current SDK is Python. The TypeScript @youdotcom-oss/sdk has been deprecated on npm since 3 March 2026 in favour of the MCP package (10 of 15).

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runMojeek Web Search APIYou.com APIsEdge
Reliability16%204580You.com APIs +35
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.22992You.com APIs +63
Agent ergonomics13%16.26683You.com APIs +17
Security & auth14%17.51559You.com APIs +44
Payments & pricing10%12.52088You.com APIs +68
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.81085You.com APIs +75
Transparency & trust7%8.86867Mojeek Web Search API +1
Negative events≤150-3
TotalF 36.4/100BB 76.1/100

Facts side by side

FactMojeek Web Search APIYou.com APIs
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorMojeek LimitedYou.com
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.you.com/v1/search
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingPay per useFreemium
Price for web search$2.68 per 1,000 requests$5 per 1,000 requests
x402nopayer tooling only
Tools exposed06
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
MCP registrynot listedio.github.youdotcom-oss/mcp
Last releasenone2026-10-28
Terms last updatedno date given2024-08-27
Privacy policy last updated2022-02-022026-09-22
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyesyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Popularitynone4.4k npm/wk, 92k PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone3.8/5 (8)

How the scores have moved

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.

You.com APIs

x402 and MPP on Web Search and Finance Research, with no account needed, and keys can carry a spending cap. Two API hosts, so Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io, and Python SDK 3.6.0 changed the default search response in a minor release.

Before you call either

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

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. With Python SDK 3.6.0 or later, pass knowledge=None, extraction=None on search unless you want highlights and knowledge cards, which are on by default and may cost more
  5. Treat a 429 with spend_cap_exceeded as a budget stop, not a rate limit. Retrying won't clear it until the cap is raised

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Mojeek Web Search API or You.com APIs?

You.com APIs scores 76.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Mojeek Web Search API's 36.4 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Which is cheaper for web search, Mojeek Web Search API or You.com APIs?

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

Do Mojeek Web Search API and You.com APIs need an API key?

Mojeek Web Search API needs an API key. You.com APIs takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Mojeek Web Search API and You.com APIs without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Mojeek Web Search API. You.com APIs has a hosted endpoint at https://api.you.com/v1/search.

Other comparisons with Mojeek Web Search API or You.com APIs

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