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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

SearchAPI.io vs SerpApi

SerpApi has a score of 62.6 (B) against SearchAPI.io's 51.4 (D). Both do web search. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 67 points.

SearchAPI.ioSearchApi · HTTP API D51.4/100#351 of 452 SerpApiSerpApi · HTTP API B62.6/100#216 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick SearchAPI.io for

  • reliability (+30)

Pick SerpApi for

  • schema & documentation (+8)
  • agent ergonomics (+36)
  • security & auth (+12)
  • maintenance & community (+67)
  • transparency & trust (+23)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runSearchAPI.ioSerpApiEdge
Reliability16%209060SearchAPI.io +30
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25967SerpApi +8
Agent ergonomics13%16.25288SerpApi +36
Security & auth14%17.52840SerpApi +12
Payments & pricing10%12.53030even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.81582SerpApi +67
Transparency & trust7%8.86285SerpApi +23
Negative events≤1500
Total51.4 · D62.6 · B

Facts side by side

FactSearchAPI.ioSerpApi
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorSearchApiSerpApi
Hosted endpointhttps://www.searchapi.io/api/v1/searchhttps://serpapi.com/search
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
Licencenonenone
Tools exposednone3
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtnoyes
MCP registryio.searchapi/mcpio.github.serpapi/serpapi-mcp
Last releasenone2026-09-22
Popularitynone175 stars, 169k npm/wk, 104k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3/5 (2)3.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

SearchAPI.io

99.9% SLA on every plan and no incidents on the status page since August. MCP exposes over 100 tools with no toolsets.

SerpApi

Over 100 engines behind one GET URL, with json_restrictor field selection and output=md. 25 incidents on the status feed from July to 1 October 2026, including an outage across all APIs on 10 September.

Before you call either

SearchAPI.io

  1. Send the key as Authorization: Bearer, not api_key= in the URL
  2. Connect the MCP through OAuth or the X-MCP-Token header, not the registry's ?token= URL
  3. Call the REST API with engine= when context is tight. The MCP loads over 100 tool definitions
  4. Page Google results with page. num is fixed at 10
  5. Pace bursts. One hour can use at most 20 per cent of the plan's monthly searches

SerpApi

  1. Use the MCP with Authorization: Bearer, not the key-in-path URL the README leads with
  2. Read serpapi://engines/<engine> before calling a new engine, since params isn't typed
  3. Add json_restrictor or output=md to cut tokens, and mode: compact on the MCP
  4. A 429 means either the hourly limit or an empty balance. Check the account before retrying
  5. Repeat a search within the hour and the cached copy is free. Set no_cache=true only when freshness matters

Other comparisons with SearchAPI.io or SerpApi

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