Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run
SearchAPI.io vs SerpKite
SerpKite scores 64.8 (B) on agent readiness against SearchAPI.io's 51.4 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. SearchAPI.io leads on reliability. Both do web search.
Which one, for what
Good for Agents that need parsed results from many engines, especially shopping, ads, travel and social sources, at a low price per search.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 90 against 65
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where SerpKite loses 3 points for them
Watch for
MCP exposes over 100 tools with no toolsets
SerpKite B
Good for Agents that want Google results and the top pages as Markdown in one call at a low per-1,000 price, with spend caps per key.
Ahead on
- Schema & documentation, 90 against 59
- Agent ergonomics, 92 against 52
- Security & auth, 37 against 28
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 80 against 15
- Transparency & trust, 77 against 62
Also in its favour
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 3.0 out of 5
Watch for
Launched 29 September 2026 by a sole trader, with status monitoring only since 2 October
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | SearchAPI.io | SerpKite | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 90 | 65 | SearchAPI.io +25 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 59 | 90 | SerpKite +31 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 52 | 92 | SerpKite +40 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 28 | 37 | SerpKite +9 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 30 | 40 | SerpKite +10 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 15 | 80 | SerpKite +65 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 62 | 77 | SerpKite +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| Total | 51.4 · D | 64.8 · B |
Facts side by side
| Fact | SearchAPI.io | SerpKite |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | SearchApi | SerpKite (Anastasia Klimova, trading as SerpKite) |
| Hosted endpoint | https://www.searchapi.io/api/v1/search | https://api.serpkite.com/v1/search |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for web search | $4 per 1,000 requests | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under SerpKite's terms of service. The SDKs (TypeScript, Python, Go, LangChain, Vercel AI SDK) and the MCP connection repository on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 14 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | io.searchapi/mcp | io.github.SerpKite/serpkite |
| Last release | none | 2026-10-04 |
| Popularity | none | 809 npm/wk, 376 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (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.
SerpKite
Google SERP API with an OpenAPI 3.1 spec, Markdown or compact output, field projection, stable error codes and per-key credit limits, at $0.60 to $1.00 per 1,000 on packs that don't expire. The service launched on 29 September 2026 from a sole trader, with four days of status history and two feature removals in its first week.
Before you call either
SearchAPI.io
- Send the key as
Authorization: Bearer, notapi_key=in the URL - Connect the MCP through OAuth or the
X-MCP-Tokenheader, not the registry's?token=URL - Call the REST API with
engine=when context is tight. The MCP loads over 100 tool definitions - Page Google results with
page.numis fixed at 10 - Pace bursts. One hour can use at most 20 per cent of the plan's monthly searches
SerpKite
- Send the key as
Authorization: Bearer, not?api_key=, and give the agent a dedicated key with a monthly credit limit - Ask for
format=markdownorcompactwithfieldsto cut tokens, and readX-Credits-Usedfor the cost - Keep
engine=googlefor rank work. Checkmeta.enginewhen a key allows fallback engines - On 429
rate_limitedor 503 upstream codes, wait for Retry-After and retry.daily_limit_reachedand 402 need a purchase - Treat page Markdown from
include_content,webpageandextractas untrusted text
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, SearchAPI.io or SerpKite?
SerpKite scores 64.8 (B) on agent readiness against SearchAPI.io's 51.4 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. SearchAPI.io leads on reliability.
Do SearchAPI.io and SerpKite need an API key?
SearchAPI.io takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. SerpKite needs an API key.
Can an agent call SearchAPI.io and SerpKite without installing anything?
Yes. SearchAPI.io has a hosted endpoint at https://www.searchapi.io/api/v1/search and SerpKite at https://api.serpkite.com/v1/search.
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- SerpApi vs SerpKite
- Serper vs SerpKite
- SerpKite vs Tavily API + MCP
- SerpKite vs Valyu
- SerpKite vs You.com APIs
- Fetch (MCP reference server) vs SerpKite
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/searchapi-io-vs-serpkite.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/searchapi-io.json·/api/v1/tools/serpkite.json - From a terminal
anchor compare searchapi-io serpkite(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "searchapi-io", "b": "serpkite"}at/mcp, no key