# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- 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

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.

- SerpApi: grade B, 62.6/100, rank #216 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serpapi.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/serpapi.json
- You.com APIs: grade BB, 76.9/100, rank #24 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/you-com-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/you-com-api.json

## 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

| Category | Weight | SerpApi | You.com APIs | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 85 | You.com APIs +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 82 | You.com APIs +15 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 84 | SerpApi +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 40 | 53 | You.com APIs +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 88 | You.com APIs +58 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 82 | even |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 63 | SerpApi +22 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **62.6 · B** | **76.9 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | SerpApi | You.com APIs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | SerpApi | You.com |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://serpapi.com/search` | `https://api.you.com/v1/search` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | none | none |
| Tools exposed | 3 | 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 | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.serpapi/serpapi-mcp` | `io.github.youdotcom-oss/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-22 |
| Popularity | 175 stars, 169k npm/wk, 104k PyPI/wk | 4.4k npm/wk, 92k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (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

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