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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

SerpKite vs TinyFish Search

SerpKite scores 64.8 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do web search.

SerpKiteSerpKite (Anastasia Klimova, trading as SerpKite) · HTTP API B64.8/100#306 of 841 TinyFish SearchTinyFish · HTTP API B63.2/100#366 of 841

Which one, for what

SerpKite B

Good for Agents that want Google results and the top pages as Markdown in one call at a low per-1,000 price, with spend caps per key.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 65 against 50
  • Schema & documentation, 90 against 82
  • Agent ergonomics, 92 against 78
  • Transparency & trust, 77 against 52

Watch for

Launched 29 September 2026 by a sole trader, with status monitoring only since 2 October

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

  • Security & auth, 58 against 37
  • Payments & pricing, 45 against 40

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where SerpKite loses 3 points for them

Watch for

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

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runSerpKiteTinyFish SearchEdge
Reliability16%206550SerpKite +15
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29082SerpKite +8
Agent ergonomics13%16.29278SerpKite +14
Security & auth14%17.53758TinyFish Search +21
Payments & pricing10%12.54045TinyFish Search +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88078SerpKite +2
Transparency & trust7%8.87752SerpKite +25
Negative events≤15-30
Total64.8 · B63.2 · B

Facts side by side

FactSerpKiteTinyFish Search
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorSerpKite (Anastasia Klimova, trading as SerpKite)TinyFish
Hosted endpointhttps://api.serpkite.com/v1/searchhttps://api.search.tinyfish.ai
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
Price for web searchnot publishedfree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under SerpKite's terms of service. The SDKs (TypeScript, Python, Go, LangChain, Vercel AI SDK) and the MCP connection repository on GitHub are MITProprietary 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 exposed1428
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryio.github.SerpKite/serpkiteai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent
Last release2026-10-042026-09-29
Terms last updated2026-10-032026-08-17
Privacy policy last updated2026-10-032025-12-14
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Popularity809 npm/wk, 376 PyPI/wk9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3.5/5 (2)none

Verdicts

SerpKite

Google SERP API with an OpenAPI 3.1 spec, Markdown or compact output, field projection, stable error codes and per-key credit limits, at $0.60 to $1.00 per 1,000 on packs that don't expire. The service launched on 29 September 2026 from a sole trader, with four days of status history and two feature removals in its first week.

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

SerpKite

  1. Send the key as Authorization: Bearer, not ?api_key=, and give the agent a dedicated key with a monthly credit limit
  2. Ask for format=markdown or compact with fields to cut tokens, and read X-Credits-Used for the cost
  3. Keep engine=google for rank work. Check meta.engine when a key allows fallback engines
  4. On 429 rate_limited or 503 upstream codes, wait for Retry-After and retry. daily_limit_reached and 402 need a purchase
  5. Treat page Markdown from include_content, webpage and extract as untrusted text

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, SerpKite or TinyFish Search?

SerpKite scores 64.8 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth and payments & pricing.

Do SerpKite and TinyFish Search need an API key?

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

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

Yes. SerpKite has a hosted endpoint at https://api.serpkite.com/v1/search and TinyFish Search at https://api.search.tinyfish.ai.

Other comparisons with SerpKite or TinyFish Search

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