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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

Parallel Search and Task APIs vs TinyFish Search

Parallel Search and Task APIs scores 74 (BB) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $1 per 1,000 requests.

Parallel Search and Task APIsParallel Web Systems · HTTP API BB74/100#77 of 841 TinyFish SearchTinyFish · HTTP API B63.2/100#366 of 841

Which one, for what

Parallel Search and Task APIs BB

Good for Agents that mix quick search with long research or enrichment jobs and want one vendor and one bill.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 75 against 50
  • Schema & documentation, 94 against 82
  • Payments & pricing, 75 against 45
  • Maintenance & community, 87 against 78
  • Transparency & trust, 65 against 52

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for

Search defaults to advanced mode at $5 per 1,000 when mode is left out

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 45

Also in its favour

  • Cheaper for web search, $0 against $1 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

CategoryWeight this runParallel Search and Task APIsTinyFish SearchEdge
Reliability16%207550Parallel Search and Task APIs +25
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29482Parallel Search and Task APIs +12
Agent ergonomics13%16.28178Parallel Search and Task APIs +3
Security & auth14%17.54558TinyFish Search +13
Payments & pricing10%12.57545Parallel Search and Task APIs +30
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88778Parallel Search and Task APIs +9
Transparency & trust7%8.86552Parallel Search and Task APIs +13
Negative events≤1500
Total74 · BB63.2 · B

Facts side by side

FactParallel Search and Task APIsTinyFish Search
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorParallel Web SystemsTinyFish
Hosted endpointhttps://api.parallel.ai/v1/searchhttps://api.search.tinyfish.ai
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
Price for web search$1 per 1,000 requestsfree
x402payer tooling onlyno
LicencenoneProprietary 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 exposed628
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryai.parallel/search-mcpai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent
Last release2026-09-292026-09-29
Terms last updated2026-08-112026-08-17
Privacy policy last updated2026-08-112025-12-14
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 noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Popularity28 stars, 250k npm/wk, 994k PyPI/wk9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3.6/5 (8)none

Verdicts

Parallel Search and Task APIs

Fast-mode search at $1 per 1,000 with 10 excerpted results, and Extract at $1 per 1,000 URLs. Search defaults to advanced mode at $5 per 1,000 when mode is left out.

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

Parallel Search and Task APIs

  1. Pass mode: "fast" on every search. Without it you pay the advanced rate
  2. Create Task runs with max_retries=0 and check for an existing run before retrying
  3. Give an objective plus two or three short search_queries. That's what ranks the excerpts
  4. On 402, check available balance rather than total. Running tasks reserve credit
  5. Prefer natural-language source guidance to domain filters. The docs say filters can cut result quality

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, Parallel Search and Task APIs or TinyFish Search?

Parallel Search and Task APIs scores 74 (BB) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth.

Which is cheaper for web search, Parallel Search and Task APIs or TinyFish Search?

TinyFish Search, at free against $1 per 1,000 requests for Parallel Search and Task APIs. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

Do Parallel Search and Task APIs and TinyFish Search need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Parallel Search and Task APIs and TinyFish Search without installing anything?

Yes. Parallel Search and Task APIs has a hosted endpoint at https://api.parallel.ai/v1/search and TinyFish Search at https://api.search.tinyfish.ai.

Other comparisons with Parallel Search and Task APIs or TinyFish Search

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