# Parallel Search and Task APIs vs Valyu

> Parallel Search and Task APIs has a score of 74.1 (BB) against Valyu's 64.6 (B). Both do web search. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 30 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-05

Parallel Search and Task APIs has a score of 74.1 (BB) against Valyu's 64.6 (B). Both do web search. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 30 points.

- Parallel Search and Task APIs: grade BB, 74.1/100, rank #51 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/parallel-search-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/parallel-search-api.json
- Valyu: grade B, 64.6/100, rank #179 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/valyu.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/valyu.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Parallel Search and Task APIs for reliability (+22), schema & documentation (+7), payments & pricing (+30), maintenance & community (+7).

Pick Valyu for transparency & trust (+13).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Parallel Search and Task APIs | Valyu | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 53 | Parallel Search and Task APIs +22 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 94 | 87 | Parallel Search and Task APIs +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 78 | Parallel Search and Task APIs +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 45 | 44 | Parallel Search and Task APIs +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 75 | 45 | Parallel Search and Task APIs +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 80 | Parallel Search and Task APIs +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 66 | 79 | Valyu +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **74.1 · BB** | **64.6 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Parallel Search and Task APIs | Valyu |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Parallel Web Systems | Valyu |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.parallel.ai/v1/search` | `https://api.valyu.ai/v1/search` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | payer tooling only | no |
| Licence | none | none |
| Tools exposed | 6 | 6 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `ai.parallel/search-mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-12 |
| Popularity | 28 stars, 250k npm/wk, 994k PyPI/wk | 19 stars, 6.7k npm/wk, 7.1k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.6/5 (8) | 4.5/5 (2) |

## 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.

**Valyu.** Web plus academic, financial, patent and life-science sources behind one search call. No published rate limits and no Retry-After or backoff guidance.

## 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

### 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. Call `valyu_search`. The legacy per-vertical MCP tools stop working on 2026-12-01
4. A 206 means some sources failed. Check which before treating results as complete
5. DeepResearch is async. Poll `valyu_deepresearch_status` rather than waiting in one call

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