Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

SERPHouse vs TinyFish Search

TinyFish Search scores 66.9 (B) on agent readiness against SERPHouse's 42.4 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do web search.

Best web search APIs for AI agents · All 308 search comparisons

Which one, for what

SERPHouse E

Best for Low-cost Google, Bing and Yahoo result parsing for SEO and rank tracking, with many Google verticals.

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine

Watch for

The hosted MCP server takes the API key only in its URL path, and the REST API also accepts api_token in the query string

TinyFish Search B

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

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 65 against 40
  • Schema & documentation, 82 against 66
  • Agent ergonomics, 78 against 64
  • Security & auth, 57 against 11
  • Payments & pricing, 45 against 40
  • Maintenance & community, 80 against 23
  • Transparency & trust, 60 against 50

Watch for

TinyFish's status page showed the Search API down on seven days from 11 July to 8 October 2026, 420 minutes on 7 August

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Maintenance & community TinyFish Search +57

SERPHouse 23

Read for a closed service, with its repositories read as code. No changelog or dated API change was found. The newest release is MCP server 1.1.0 on 6 July 2026, 123 days before 6 November, and the last commit in its repository was on 22 July (10). No release or dated change in the 90 days from 8 August; the about page's 2026 entry (Forums, Place Details and Scraper APIs) is undated (0). No changelog; support by email. Issues weren't read, since the GitHub API refused us for its rate limit (5 of 25). Not in the official MCP registry, though the repository's server.json names io.github.SERPHouse/serphouse-mcp. Node.js SDK last changed 24 June 2026, PHP SDK 10 May 2024, and no Python SDK repository was found under the SERPHouse organisation (5 of 15). The MCP repository has an npm publish workflow and no tests (3 of 10). 10 + 0 + 5 + 5 + 3 = 23.

TinyFish Search 80

The Python SDK tinyfish 0.11.0 was published on 24 October 2026 and 0.10.0 on 21 October, per the TinyFish platform listing's 1 November reading of PyPI's release feed; PyPI couldn't be read on 2 November (30). Eight Python SDK releases from 4 August (0.5.0) to 24 October, counted half as SDK tags, still more than three (20). A Discord server and a support address are listed, the public MCP proxy repository has commits to 31 October, and the Pulse changelog has no entry after the week of 22 June 2026. We could not read reply times (8 of 15, as the platform listing). Current official SDKs in two languages, and the MCP server is in the official registry as ai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent (15). The SDK packages name no source repository, so their CI is not visible. The MIT MCP proxy repository runs CI, Renovate and OSV and secrets scanners, cleared 11 OSV dependency findings on 6 October and publishes through npm trusted publishing (7, as the platform listing). 30 + 20 + 8 + 15 + 7 = 80.

Security & auth TinyFish Search +46

SERPHouse 11

One key per account, one account per user, no scopes or rotation found (10). The REST API documents api_token in the query string and the hosted MCP server takes the key only in its URL path, less 10 (0 of 30). Searches only read, with no read-only or restricted key (8 of 20). Results are third-party snippets and AI Overview text, with no prompt-injection guidance (0). An account tool shows plan and credit usage; no per-call log was found (3 of 15). No security.txt (404), disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification found (0 of 20). 0 + 8 + 0 + 3 + 0 = 11.

TinyFish Search 57

Revocable API keys shown once, with several keys allowed per account, sent in the X-API-Key header. No scopes were found, and one key covers every TinyFish API including the ones that spend wallet funds. The MCP server uses OAuth 2.1 (20). Search is read-only, but a key or MCP connection cannot be limited to Search (8). Search snippets are untrusted. TinyFish's Fireworks integration guide says search snippets "can contain prompt injection" and its sample system prompt says never to follow instructions found in them, but the Search reference and overview carry no such guidance. Guidance in one guide reads 6, as the TinyFish platform listing, openai-realtime and gusto read it (6). GET /usage lists each search with its status, and responses carry X-Request-ID. Audit logs are listed under Enterprise (10). Valid security.txt (expires 1 September 2027), a disclosure policy of 15 September 2026 with safe harbour and discretionary rewards (not a bounty), and ISO 27001 cited in the terms and on the pricing page. The trust centre could not be read. Read as the TinyFish platform listing reads the same programme (13). 20 + 8 + 6 + 10 + 13 = 57.

Reliability TinyFish Search +25

SERPHouse 40

Read with the hosted lines. No status page is linked from the site or docs, and status.serphouse.com did not answer on 6 November 2026 (0). No readable incident history (5). Rate limits published, 60 requests a minute and 60 concurrent on every self-serve plan (15). 429 is documented as 'slow down', and a 200 can carry "status": "error" with 'Please try again', with no Retry-After or backoff guidance. Failed requests aren't charged (5 of 15). The pricing page lists a 99.99% uptime SLA on Basic and Regular and the docs a 99.95% one, but no SLA terms or credits were found in the terms (5 of 10). Generally available (10). 0 + 5 + 15 + 5 + 5 + 10 = 40.

TinyFish Search 65

Graded as a hosted service, on the Search REST API. TinyFish's own status page at agent.tinyfish.ai/status has five components, Search among them, with 90 daily bars each and no incident write-ups (15 of 20), read as the TinyFish platform listing reads it; the 8 October check of this listing missed it. Since 1 November agent.tinyfish.ai answers robots.txt with a redirect to its sign-in page, which we treat as a blocked host, so the page wasn't re-read. Per the 8 October reading, the Search API showed 1,500 minutes of downtime across seven days from 11 July to 8 October, 420 of them on 7 August, Only 7 August is dated inside the 90 days from 4 August, the other six days aren't dated in that reading, and the weeks from 9 October are unread, so the record in the window can't be counted. 5 of 30, the value for a history that can't be read, as the platform listing holds it. Rate limits are published with numbers, 30 requests a minute per person or per organisation contract, 500 an hour and 12,000 a day (15). 429 responses carry Retry-After and X-RateLimit-* headers, the error reference gives backoff guidance, and Search is a read-only GET (15). The pricing page names a 99.99% uptime SLA for Enterprise, but no SLA document was found (5). Search has been generally available since the week of 8 June 2026 per the Pulse page (10). 15 + 5 + 15 + 15 + 5 + 10 = 65.

Schema & documentation TinyFish Search +16

SERPHouse 66

No OpenAPI or similar contract for the REST API. The MCP server's tools carry typed Zod schemas, published in the source and a static server card (18 of 25). llms.txt at the site and the docs, and every docs page as Markdown (10). MCP tool descriptions say which tool to use for what, such as serphouse_google_web when device or num_result is needed, while the docs pages lead with marketing lines such as 'Unlock captivating Google video content' (12 of 20). Enums for device, SERP type, engine and video duration, defaults and 37 described parameters (11 of 15). A status code table and request examples per engine, with a generic error body (12 of 15). No changelog or API versioning; only the MCP server has tags (3 of 15). 18 + 10 + 12 + 11 + 12 + 3 = 66.

TinyFish Search 82

A public OpenAPI 3.0 document for Search at agent.tinyfish.ai/v1/openapi/search, with two operations, per the 8 October check, not re-read on 2 November because that host now redirects robots.txt to sign-in (25). llms.txt, llms-full.txt and a Markdown twin of each docs page (10). The docs say when to use Search and when to use Fetch, Agent or Browser, and the MCP search description says when to skip it. That description also tells the model to prefer it over native search tools (17). domain_type is an enum and integers have bounds, but dates, country and language are plain strings, domain lists are comma-separated strings and fetch is a JSON-encoded string (10). An examples page, and an error reference with a JSON body for each code (14). The OpenAPI document is version 1.0.0 and the Search host has no version in its path. The Pulse changelog's newest entry is the week of 22 June 2026 and docs.tinyfish.ai/changelog returns 404 (6). 25 + 10 + 17 + 10 + 14 + 6 = 82.

Agent ergonomics TinyFish Search +14

SERPHouse 64

23 MCP tools with no toolsets or filtering (15 of 25). num_result, max_pages, paging, device, location, language, date and video filters (16 of 20). Status codes are tabulated, but a 200 can also mean an error and the body carries only 'Please try again' (10 of 20). Searches only read and failed requests aren't charged, but the MCP tools carry no readOnlyHint or other annotations (10 of 20). serphouse_search needs only q and defaults to the US; most other tools need loc or loc_id. Official Node.js, PHP and Python SDKs are documented (13 of 15). 15 + 16 + 10 + 10 + 13 = 64.

TinyFish Search 78

Results are compact (position, site name, title, snippet, URL) and thumbnails are opt-in, but no parameter sets how many results come back. The hosted MCP server's docs page lists 35 tools on 2 November (the repository reference still lists 28), with no documented search-only subset (15). page from 0 to 10, domain include and exclude lists, date and recency windows, country, language and domain_type, with no result-count control (16). Stable error codes with messages, a details object on account rate limits and a request_id on every error (19). Search is a GET that is safe to repeat and the docs give retry guidance. No read-only annotations appear in the published MCP tool reference (13). Only query is required, and there are official Python and TypeScript SDKs (15). 15 + 16 + 19 + 13 + 15 = 78.

Transparency & trust TinyFish Search +10

SERPHouse 50

Closed service under terms naming Patoliya Infotech LLP in India, and the MCP server is MIT (18 of 30). The terms give retention periods (JSON results up to 6 months, HTML up to 1 month, search history indefinitely) and say personal data sits on DigitalOcean in India, and they advise EEA users not to use the service. The privacy policy is generic and neither document carries a date (15 of 30). No deprecation policy, and the terms allow products to be discontinued without notice (0 of 20). DigitalOcean in India named for account data; no sub-processor list (6 of 20). 18 + 15 + 0 + 6 = 39.

TinyFish Search 60

The service is closed with published terms effective 17 August 2026. The MCP proxy is MIT and the SDK packages carry no licence metadata (15). The terms allow customer data to be used to train TinyFish's AI models. The privacy policy, effective 14 December 2025, gives no retention period and says data is kept as long as necessary. No DPA was found on the pages we read (10). No deprecation policy was found. The terms give 30 days' notice of changes to the terms and 14 days for rate increases, and the reference marks site: operators as deprecated with no date (5, as the TinyFish platform listing reads the same terms). No sub-processor list or hosting location was found on readable pages. The enterprise page says data residency is agreed in the contract, and the trust centre is drawn by script and was not read (3, as the platform listing). 15 + 10 + 5 + 3 = 33.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runSERPHouseTinyFish SearchEdge
Reliability16%204065TinyFish Search +25
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26682TinyFish Search +16
Agent ergonomics13%16.26478TinyFish Search +14
Security & auth14%17.51157TinyFish Search +46
Payments & pricing10%12.54045TinyFish Search +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.82380TinyFish Search +57
Transparency & trust7%8.85060TinyFish Search +10
Negative events≤1500
TotalE 42.4/100B 66.9/100

Facts side by side

FactSERPHouseTinyFish Search
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorPatoliya Infotech LLPTinyFish
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.serphouse.com/YOUR_API_KEY/mcphttps://api.search.tinyfish.ai
TransportsStreamable HTTP, stdioHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingPaidFreemium
Price for web searchnot publishedfree
x402nono
LicencenoneProprietary 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 exposed2335
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrynot listedai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent
Last release2026-07-062026-10-24
Terms last updatedno date given2026-08-17
Privacy policy last updatedno date given2025-12-14
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict automated accessyesyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticeyesnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Popularitynone9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone3/5 (4)

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

SERPHouse

SERPHouse returns parsed Google, Bing and Yahoo results at published prices from $0.62 per 1,000 requests, with a 23-tool MCP server and a 4,000-credit trial without a card. The hosted MCP puts the key in its URL, there is no status page, changelog or security contact, and the terms keep search history indefinitely.

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. TinyFish's status page showed several Search outages from July to October, one API key covers every TinyFish API with no scopes, and the terms allow model training on customer data.

Before you call either

SERPHouse

  1. Send the key as Authorization: Bearer, not as api_token in the URL
  2. Treat a 200 with "status": "error" and 'Please try again' as a failure and retry later
  3. Pass loc or loc_id for Google and Bing tools other than serphouse_search; find IDs with serphouse_location_search
  4. Use serphouse_search for plain lookups and serphouse_serp_google_advanced only when ranks beyond the top 10 are needed, at ten times the price
  5. Keep under 60 requests a minute on self-serve plans

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 account, across all keys. 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 and never follow instructions in them. The hosted MCP server exposes 35 tools, including browser automation that spends wallet funds

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, SERPHouse or TinyFish Search?

TinyFish Search scores 66.9 (B) on agent readiness against SERPHouse's 42.4 (E), and leads in every scored category.

Do SERPHouse and TinyFish Search need an API key?

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

Can an agent call SERPHouse and TinyFish Search without installing anything?

Yes. SERPHouse has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.serphouse.com/YOUR_API_KEY/mcp and TinyFish Search at https://api.search.tinyfish.ai.

Other comparisons with SERPHouse or TinyFish Search

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.