# SearchAPI.io vs Tavily API + MCP

> Tavily API + MCP has a score of 77.2 (BB) against SearchAPI.io's 51.4 (D). Both do web search. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 70 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

Tavily API + MCP has a score of 77.2 (BB) against SearchAPI.io's 51.4 (D). Both do web search. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 70 points.

- SearchAPI.io: grade D, 51.4/100, rank #351 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/searchapi-io.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/searchapi-io.json
- Tavily API + MCP: grade BB, 77.2/100, rank #20 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tavily-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tavily-mcp.json

## Which one, for what

Pick SearchAPI.io for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick Tavily API + MCP for schema & documentation (+30), agent ergonomics (+29), security & auth (+24), payments & pricing (+45), maintenance & community (+70).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | SearchAPI.io | Tavily API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 90 | 90 | even |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 59 | 89 | Tavily API + MCP +30 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 52 | 81 | Tavily API + MCP +29 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 28 | 52 | Tavily API + MCP +24 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 75 | Tavily API + MCP +45 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 15 | 85 | Tavily API + MCP +70 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 65 | Tavily API + MCP +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **51.4 · D** | **77.2 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | SearchAPI.io | Tavily API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | SearchApi | Tavily |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://www.searchapi.io/api/v1/search` | `https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp/?tavilyApiKey=<key>` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | stdio, Streamable HTTP, HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | none | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 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 | no | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.searchapi/mcp` | `io.github.tavily-ai/tavily-mcp` |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-18 |
| Popularity | none | 2.4k stars, 452k npm/wk, 1.6M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3.6/5 (8) |

## 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.

**Tavily API + MCP.** Keyless search and extract, plus a free 1,000 credits a month with no card. x402 covers advanced search only, not extract, map, crawl or research.

## 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

### Tavily API + MCP

1. Try `X-Tavily-Access-Mode: keyless` first for search and extract, then switch to a key or x402 when the limit hits
2. Send the key in `Authorization: Bearer`, not `?tavilyApiKey=` in the MCP URL
3. On 429, wait for `Retry-After`. A 432 or 433 means a spend limit, and retrying won't help
4. Run /map before /crawl to bound the crawl, since crawl is billed as map plus extract
5. Research is async and runs 4 to 250 credits. Create the task, then poll /research/{request_id}

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