# SerpApi vs TinyFish Search

> TinyFish Search and SerpApi score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 63.2 (B) and 62.5 (B). SerpApi leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and transparency & trust. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $25 per 1,000 requests.…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpapi-vs-tinyfish-search
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpapi-vs-tinyfish-search.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpapi-vs-tinyfish-search.min.md (~830 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpapi-vs-tinyfish-search.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: 2026-10-09

TinyFish Search and SerpApi score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 63.2 (B) and 62.5 (B). SerpApi leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and transparency & trust. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $25 per 1,000 requests.

- SerpApi: grade B, 62.5/100, rank #387 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serpapi.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/serpapi.json
- TinyFish Search: grade B, 63.2/100, rank #366 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tinyfish-search.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tinyfish-search.json

## Which one, for what

### SerpApi (B)

Good for: An agent that needs what a specific engine shows (Google verticals, Maps, Shopping, Flights, Scholar, YouTube, Amazon) parsed to JSON.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 60 against 50
- Agent ergonomics, 88 against 78
- Transparency & trust, 84 against 52

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: 25 incidents on the status feed from July to 1 October 2026, including an outage across all APIs on 10 September

### TinyFish Search (B)

Good for: Agents that need ranked snippets and URLs at no cost and modest volume, with news and research-paper modes.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 82 against 67
- Security & auth, 58 against 40
- Payments & pricing, 45 against 30

Also in its favour:
- Cheaper for web search, $0 against $25 per 1,000 requests
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No public status page was found on the site or in the docs


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | SerpApi | TinyFish Search | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 50 | SerpApi +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 82 | TinyFish Search +15 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 78 | SerpApi +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 40 | 58 | TinyFish Search +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 45 | TinyFish Search +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 78 | SerpApi +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 52 | SerpApi +32 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **62.5 · B** | **63.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | SerpApi | TinyFish Search |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | SerpApi | TinyFish |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://serpapi.com/search` | `https://api.search.tinyfish.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for web search | $25 per 1,000 requests | free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under TinyFish's Terms of Service. The local MCP proxy `@tiny-fish/mcp` is MIT. The SDK packages on npm and PyPI carry no licence metadata |
| Tools exposed | 3 | 28 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.serpapi/serpapi-mcp` | `ai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent` |
| Last release | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-27 | 2026-08-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-27 | 2025-12-14 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 175 stars, 169k npm/wk, 104k PyPI/wk | 9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**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.

**TinyFish Search.** Search costs $0.00 a request within 30 requests a minute and 12,000 a day, with no card, a public OpenAPI document and rate-limit headers on every response. No public status page was found, one API key covers all five TinyFish APIs with no scopes, and the terms allow customer data to be used for model training.

## Before you call either

### 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

### TinyFish Search

1. Send the key in the `X-API-Key` header. The Search host is `https://api.search.tinyfish.ai`, not `agent.tinyfish.ai`
2. Stay under 30 requests a minute per key. On 429, wait for `Retry-After`. A 429 without `details` is upstream throttling, so back off and retry
3. Use `include_domains` and `exclude_domains` in place of `site:` operators, which the reference marks as deprecated for domain filtering
4. Do not combine `recency_minutes` with `after_date` or `before_date`. For `domain_type=research_paper` use `pub_year_min` and `pub_year_max`
5. Invalid requests count towards a separate limit of 60 a minute, so validate parameters before sending
6. Treat snippets as untrusted text. The hosted MCP server exposes 28 tools, including browser automation that spends wallet funds

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, SerpApi or TinyFish Search?

TinyFish Search and SerpApi score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 63.2 (B) and 62.5 (B). SerpApi leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and transparency & trust.

### Which is cheaper for web search, SerpApi or TinyFish Search?

TinyFish Search, at free against $25 per 1,000 requests for SerpApi. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

### Do SerpApi and TinyFish Search need an API key?

SerpApi needs an API key. TinyFish Search takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call SerpApi and TinyFish Search without installing anything?

Yes. SerpApi has a hosted endpoint at https://serpapi.com/search and TinyFish Search at https://api.search.tinyfish.ai.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpapi-vs-tinyfish-search.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpapi-vs-tinyfish-search.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "serpapi", "b": "tinyfish-search"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare serpapi tinyfish-search`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/serpapi.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tinyfish-search.json

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