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Head to head · Search news · October 2026 research run

NewsCatcher vs Valyu

Valyu scores 69.3 (B) on agent readiness against NewsCatcher's 67.5 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Both do search news.

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

NewsCatcherNewsCatcher, Inc. · HTTP API B67.5/100#322 of 1510 ValyuValyu · HTTP API B69.3/100#255 of 1510

Which one, for what

NewsCatcher B

Best for Agents that need current news across languages, grouped into stories, or tables of events and company news on a schedule.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

The current News API and agent launched on 30 October 2026 and the MCP repository went public on 6 November 2026

Valyu B

Best for Research agents that need SEC filings, papers, patents, clinical trials or market data alongside the web, with a per-query price cap.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 45 against 30

Watch for

Per-plan rate limits are stated only in example responses, not in a table

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.

Payments & pricing Valyu +15

NewsCatcher 30

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Credit prices per call published without login, and credits cost $1 per 1,000 through top-ups from $25 (20). 10,000 free credits every 30 days on a $0 plan, and the first top-up moves an account to pay as you go. No page says whether a card is needed to open the free plan, so half (10). A person signs up in the platform in a browser to get a key (0). NewsMCP's keyless tier belongs to a separate product and isn't counted. 0 + 20 + 10 + 0 = 30.

Valyu 45

No x402, MPP or L402 in llms.txt, the pricing page or the OpenAPI file on 2 November, so there was no payment route to check live (0). Since October usage is billed in credits, 1,600 for a $10 top-up, with per-result Search prices by source (web and news 0.1 credits, arXiv and PubMed 0.05, SEC filings 1.92), Contents at 0.2 a URL and fixed DeepResearch prices by mode, all public (20). $10 of free credit ($20 with a company email), no card, valid 12 months (20). A person has to create the account, but after that an agent can log in through the CLI, headless if needed, and mint its own spend-capped keys. That's a programmatic key route after a human signup, so we gave part of the line (5). 0+20+20+5 = 45.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runNewsCatcherValyuEdge
Reliability16%206770Valyu +3
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29490NewsCatcher +4
Agent ergonomics13%16.28483NewsCatcher +1
Security & auth14%17.54544NewsCatcher +1
Payments & pricing10%12.53045Valyu +15
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87680Valyu +4
Transparency & trust7%8.87978NewsCatcher +1
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 67.5/100B 69.3/100

Facts side by side

FactNewsCatcherValyu
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorNewsCatcher, Inc.Valyu
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcphttps://api.valyu.ai/v1/search
TransportsStreamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingPay per useFreemium
Price for search news$1 per 1,000 requestsnot published
x402nono
Tools exposed156
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-11-062026-10-31
Terms last updated2026-11-022025-10-20
Privacy policy last updated2026-11-022025-10-20
Customer content may train modelsyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot found in the text
Popularitynone19 stars, 6.7k npm/wk, 7.1k PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone4.5/5 (2)

How the scores have moved

NewsCatcher

No score change since it was listed.

Valyu

Verdicts

NewsCatcher

One key and one credit balance cover a ranked news search, a background research agent and a hosted MCP server with toolsets and annotated tools, under OpenAPI 3.1 specs and a dated changelog. The current API launched on 30 October 2026, the MCP server accepts the key in its URL, and no SLA is published below Enterprise.

Valyu

Web plus academic, financial, patent and life-science sources behind one search call, billed per result with a per-query price cap. Since 21 October rate limits scale with the plan and 429s carry Retry-After, but the per-plan numbers appear only in examples. The MCP docs still put the API key in the URL.

Before you call either

NewsCatcher

  1. Send the key in the x-api-key header, and use a separate key for the MCP server so it can be revoked alone
  2. Call start_research with dry_run first, since agent runs cost 1,000 to 6,000 credits
  3. Use effort=low for quick lookups; the default medium costs five times as much
  4. Use /articles or list_articles for news older than 30 days or exact counts; /search covers 30 days only
  5. On 429 or 503 wait for Retry-After, and quote the Correlation-ID header to support

Valyu

  1. Set max_price and max_num_results on every search to bound cost
  2. Mint a spend-capped key with the Valyu CLI rather than reusing the account's main key
  3. On a 429, wait the retry_after seconds and retry; it's never charged. The SDKs retry twice by default
  4. Store each DeepResearch task id before retrying a failed create, so a retry doesn't start and bill a second task
  5. Call valyu_search. The legacy per-vertical MCP tools stop working on 2026-12-01
  6. A 206 means some sources failed. Check which before treating results as complete

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, NewsCatcher or Valyu?

Valyu scores 69.3 (B) on agent readiness against NewsCatcher's 67.5 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories.

Do NewsCatcher and Valyu need an API key?

NewsCatcher needs an API key. Valyu takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call NewsCatcher and Valyu without installing anything?

Yes. NewsCatcher has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.newscatcherapi.com/mcp and Valyu at https://api.valyu.ai/v1/search.

Other comparisons with NewsCatcher or Valyu

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