# SearchAPI.io vs Valyu

> Valyu has a score of 64.6 (B) against SearchAPI.io's 51.4 (D). Both do web search. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 65 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/searchapi-io-vs-valyu
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/searchapi-io-vs-valyu.md (~1,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/searchapi-io-vs-valyu.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/searchapi-io-vs-valyu.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

Valyu has a score of 64.6 (B) against SearchAPI.io's 51.4 (D). Both do web search. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 65 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
- 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 SearchAPI.io for reliability (+37).

Pick Valyu for schema & documentation (+28), agent ergonomics (+26), security & auth (+16), payments & pricing (+15), maintenance & community (+65), transparency & trust (+17).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | SearchAPI.io | Valyu | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 90 | 53 | SearchAPI.io +37 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 59 | 87 | Valyu +28 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 52 | 78 | Valyu +26 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 28 | 44 | Valyu +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 45 | Valyu +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 15 | 80 | Valyu +65 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 79 | Valyu +17 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **51.4 · D** | **64.6 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | SearchAPI.io | Valyu |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | SearchApi | Valyu |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://www.searchapi.io/api/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 | no | no |
| Licence | none | none |
| 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` | not listed |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-12 |
| Popularity | none | 19 stars, 6.7k npm/wk, 7.1k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 4.5/5 (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.

**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

### 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

### 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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