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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

SerpApi vs You.com APIs

You.com APIs has a score of 76.9 (BB) against SerpApi's 62.6 (B). Both do web search. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 58 points.

SerpApiSerpApi · HTTP API B62.6/100#216 of 452 You.com APIsYou.com · HTTP API BB76.9/100#24 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick SerpApi for

  • transparency & trust (+22)

Pick You.com APIs for

  • reliability (+25)
  • schema & documentation (+15)
  • security & auth (+13)
  • payments & pricing (+58)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runSerpApiYou.com APIsEdge
Reliability16%206085You.com APIs +25
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26782You.com APIs +15
Agent ergonomics13%16.28884SerpApi +4
Security & auth14%17.54053You.com APIs +13
Payments & pricing10%12.53088You.com APIs +58
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88282even
Transparency & trust7%8.88563SerpApi +22
Negative events≤1500
Total62.6 · B76.9 · BB

Facts side by side

FactSerpApiYou.com APIs
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorSerpApiYou.com
Hosted endpointhttps://serpapi.com/searchhttps://api.you.com/v1/search
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdioHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nopayer tooling only
Licencenonenone
Tools exposed36
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryio.github.serpapi/serpapi-mcpio.github.youdotcom-oss/mcp
Last release2026-09-222026-09-22
Popularity175 stars, 169k npm/wk, 104k PyPI/wk4.4k npm/wk, 92k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3.5/5 (2)3.8/5 (8)

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.

You.com APIs

x402 and MPP on Web Search and Finance Research, with no account needed. Two API hosts. Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io.

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

You.com APIs

  1. For unattended runs call GET https://api.you.com/v1/search, handle the 402 and pay with x402. It's half the MPP price for search
  2. Use https://api.you.com/mcp?profile=free to try search with no key (100 queries a day)
  3. Send Answer, Research and Finance Research to api.you.com. On ydc-index.io they fail with 'Missing Authentication Token'
  4. Pass ?tools= with only the tools you need to keep the MCP tool list short
  5. On 429, wait for Retry-After and watch X-RateLimit-Remaining before the next burst

Other comparisons with SerpApi or You.com APIs

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