Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run
SERPHouse vs Valyu
Valyu scores 69.3 (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
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
- Free to start without a card
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
Valyu B
Best for Research agents that need SEC filings, papers, patents, clinical trials or market data alongside the web, with a per-query price cap.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 70 against 40
- Schema & documentation, 90 against 66
- Agent ergonomics, 83 against 64
- Security & auth, 44 against 11
- Payments & pricing, 45 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 80 against 23
- Transparency & trust, 78 against 50
Watch for
Per-plan rate limits are stated only in example responses, not in a table
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 Valyu +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.
Valyu 80
valyu-py 2.13.5 and valyu-js 2.11.5 on 31 October 2026, named in the platform changelog the same day (30). valyu-py tagged ten releases from 2.12.1 (12 August) to 2.13.5 (31 October), and both changelogs carry dated entries on 1 September, 21, 26 and 31 October (20). Public platform and API changelogs, both current. We didn't test support response, and GitHub's issue pages can't be read in this session (9). Current Python and TypeScript SDKs. The MCP server isn't in the official registry (15). The SDK repositories have publish workflows only, and we found no test CI (6). 30+20+9+15+6 = 80.
Security & auth Valyu +33
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.
Valyu 44
The CLI mints API keys with a hard spending cap and can rotate and revoke them, management keys carry explicit scopes, organisations have MFA, and the hosted MCP has OAuth sign-in (28). The MCP docs lead with ?valyuApiKey= in the URL (minus 10). Spend-capped keys and max_price limit cost exposure, but valyu_deepresearch_control deletes tasks with no confirmation we could find (12). Search and Contents return full page text from the open web, and we found no prompt-injection guidance in the docs index (0). No per-call log or audit trail found for the operator (0). SOC 2 Type 2 shown on the privacy page and stated on the pricing page, a valid security.txt (security@valyu.ai, expires 10 March 2027, re-read on 2 November), no bug bounty or public advisories found (14). The MCP docs still give ?valyuApiKey= for every client on 2 November. 28-10+12+0+0+14 = 44.
Reliability Valyu +30
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.
Valyu 70
Instatus page at status.valyu.ai with separate Search, Contents, Answer and DeepResearch components and an RSS history (20). In the 90 days to 2 November it lists a 13-minute Search incident on 6 October with "certain data sources", a partial incident, plus scheduled maintenance on 9 August (Search, 3 hours 13 minutes, announced the evening before) and 20 October (every component, 3 hours, announced 47 minutes ahead). Minor only (20). Since 21 October limits apply per organisation and per endpoint and scale with the plan, but the numbers appear only in example responses (Search at 5 requests a second on pay-as-you-go and 10 on Ridiculously Cheap; DeepResearch at 2 and 5 tasks at once), and the pricing page the docs point to for each plan's rate doesn't list them (8 of 15). A 429 carries a Retry-After header and a body with retry_after, the plan and the limit, the docs say to wait and retry with backoff and that a rate-limited request is never charged, and the SDKs retry 429s on their own. No idempotency keys, but the pricing page says to persist research task ids so retries don't create duplicate tasks (12). No SLA found (0). Search, Contents, Answer and DeepResearch are GA, and Workflows is labelled beta (10). 20+20+8+12+0+10 = 70.
Transparency & trust Valyu +28
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.
Valyu 78
Closed service with terms that name Valyu.Network Ltd, company 14436543 in England and Wales, per the 30 September check (15). The privacy policy (20 October 2025) says queries are deleted within 24 to 72 hours, security logs kept 90 days, performance logs 30 days and billing records 7 years, and that query data isn't used to train models. No DPA referenced (26). Dated notice for the legacy MCP tools, hidden now and removed on 1 December 2026, but no general deprecation policy (12). Processing in the UK, EU and US is disclosed. Subprocessors are named by category only (12). The privacy policy is unchanged on 2 November (last updated 20 October 2025), and the pricing page now lists zero data retention on request for Enterprise. 15+26+12+12 = 65.
Schema & documentation Valyu +24
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.
Valyu 90
Valid OpenAPI 3.0.3 (info version 2.3.0) with 24 paths and 29 operations across Search, Contents, Answer, DeepResearch, Batches, Workflows and Datasources on 2 November, matching the endpoint pages in llms.txt (25). llms.txt with a 'Guidance for agents' section (10). The MCP tools carry one-line purposes such as 'Read one or more URLs as clean markdown', and the docs explain source presets, but say little about when not to use a tool (13). search_type is an enum, max_num_results runs 1 to 20, relevance_threshold 0 to 1, source_biases -5 to 5 and instructions caps at 500 characters, with only query required (14). 200, 206 partial success and 400 to 503 documented, with examples across the docs (13). Versioned paths (/v1) and two dated changelogs, the platform changelog to 31 October 2026 and the SDK and API changelog to 26 October (15). 25+10+13+14+13+15 = 90.
Agent ergonomics Valyu +19
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.
Valyu 83
max_num_results, response_length, fast_mode and max_price size each response, and the MCP has six tools after folding eleven into one valyu_search. We couldn't read the hosted tool definitions, since the server isn't open source (22). Source include and exclude lists, per-source biases, dates, country and a relevance threshold. No pagination found (18). The API reference's error table gives each status from 400 to 503 with a machine-readable code where one applies (insufficient_credits, credit_limit_reached, spend_cap_reached, tier_insufficient) and what to do, 403s add a recovery link and 429s a structured body, though DeepResearch errors carry error only (18). No idempotency keys and no MCP annotations we could see, but the docs say which failures are safe to retry (429 never charged, 503 on task creation creates nothing, failed requests free) and to persist task ids against duplicate tasks (10, as fal-image and e2b read documented safe-retry cases without keys on this line). Only query is required, with Python and TypeScript SDKs plus a Rust SDK in alpha (15). 22+18+18+10+15 = 83.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | SERPHouse | Valyu | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 40 | 70 | Valyu +30 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 66 | 90 | Valyu +24 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 64 | 83 | Valyu +19 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 11 | 44 | Valyu +33 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 45 | Valyu +5 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 23 | 80 | Valyu +57 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 50 | 78 | Valyu +28 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | E 42.4/100 | B 69.3/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | SERPHouse | Valyu |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Patoliya Infotech LLP | Valyu |
| Hosted endpoint | https://mcp.serphouse.com/YOUR_API_KEY/mcp | https://api.valyu.ai/v1/search |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| Price for web search | not published | $0.625 per 1,000 pages |
| x402 | no | no |
| Tools exposed | 23 | 6 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-07-06 | 2026-10-31 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2025-10-20 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2025-10-20 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 19 stars, 6.7k npm/wk, 7.1k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 4.5/5 (2) |
How the scores have moved
SERPHouse
No score change since it was listed.
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.
Valyu
Web plus academic, financial, patent and life-science sources behind one search call, billed per result with a per-query price cap. Since 21 October rate limits scale with the plan and 429s carry Retry-After, but the per-plan numbers appear only in examples. The MCP docs still put the API key in the URL.
Before you call either
SERPHouse
- Send the key as
Authorization: Bearer, not asapi_tokenin the URL - Treat a 200 with
"status": "error"and 'Please try again' as a failure and retry later - Pass
locorloc_idfor Google and Bing tools other thanserphouse_search; find IDs withserphouse_location_search - Use
serphouse_searchfor plain lookups andserphouse_serp_google_advancedonly when ranks beyond the top 10 are needed, at ten times the price - Keep under 60 requests a minute on self-serve plans
Valyu
- Set
max_priceandmax_num_resultson every search to bound cost - Mint a spend-capped key with the Valyu CLI rather than reusing the account's main key
- On a 429, wait the
retry_afterseconds and retry; it's never charged. The SDKs retry twice by default - Store each DeepResearch task id before retrying a failed create, so a retry doesn't start and bill a second task
- Call
valyu_search. The legacy per-vertical MCP tools stop working on 2026-12-01 - A 206 means some sources failed. Check which before treating results as complete
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, SERPHouse or Valyu?
Valyu scores 69.3 (B) on agent readiness against SERPHouse's 42.4 (E), and leads in every scored category.
Do SERPHouse and Valyu need an API key?
SERPHouse needs an API key. Valyu takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call SERPHouse and Valyu without installing anything?
Yes. SERPHouse has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.serphouse.com/YOUR_API_KEY/mcp and Valyu at https://api.valyu.ai/v1/search.
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- Exa API + MCP vs SERPHouse
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- Kagi Search API vs SERPHouse
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- Linkup vs SERPHouse
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- Mojeek Web Search API vs SERPHouse
- Mojeek Web Search API vs Valyu
- Parallel Search and Task APIs vs SERPHouse
- Parallel Search and Task APIs vs Valyu
- Perplexity Search API vs SERPHouse
- Perplexity Search API vs Valyu
- SearchAPI.io vs SERPHouse
- SearchAPI.io vs Valyu
- SerpApi vs SERPHouse
- SerpApi vs Valyu
- Serper vs SERPHouse
- Serper vs Valyu
- SERPHouse vs SpecStream
- SERPHouse vs Tavily API + MCP
- SERPHouse vs TinyFish Search
- SERPHouse vs You.com APIs
- SerpKite vs Valyu
- Tavily API + MCP vs Valyu
- TinyFish Search vs Valyu
- Valyu vs You.com APIs
- Arcmira vs Valyu
- Grep AI vs Valyu
- SpecStream vs Valyu
- Fetch (MCP reference server) vs SERPHouse
- Fetch (MCP reference server) vs Valyu
- NewsCatcher vs SERPHouse
- NewsCatcher vs Valyu
- SERPHouse vs SerpKite
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/serphouse-vs-valyu.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/serphouse.json·/api/v1/tools/valyu.json - From a terminal
anchor compare serphouse valyu(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "serphouse", "b": "valyu"}at/mcp, no key