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

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpkite-vs-tinyfish-search
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpkite-vs-tinyfish-search.md (~2,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpkite-vs-tinyfish-search.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpkite-vs-tinyfish-search.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- 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: 2026-10-09

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.

- SerpKite: grade B, 64.8/100, rank #306 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/serpkite.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/serpkite.json
- TinyFish Search: grade B, 63.2/100, rank #366 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tinyfish-search.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tinyfish-search.json

## 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

| Category | Weight | SerpKite | TinyFish Search | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 50 | SerpKite +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 90 | 82 | SerpKite +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 78 | SerpKite +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 37 | 58 | TinyFish Search +21 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 45 | TinyFish Search +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 78 | SerpKite +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 52 | SerpKite +25 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **64.8 · B** | **63.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | SerpKite | TinyFish Search |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | SerpKite (Anastasia Klimova, trading as SerpKite) | TinyFish |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.serpkite.com/v1/search` | `https://api.search.tinyfish.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for web search | not published | free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under SerpKite's terms of service. The SDKs (TypeScript, Python, Go, LangChain, Vercel AI SDK) and the MCP connection repository on GitHub are MIT | Proprietary 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 exposed | 14 | 28 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.SerpKite/serpkite` | `ai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent` |
| Last release | 2026-10-04 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-03 | 2026-08-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-03 | 2025-12-14 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 809 npm/wk, 376 PyPI/wk | 9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (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.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpkite-vs-tinyfish-search.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpkite-vs-tinyfish-search.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "serpkite", "b": "tinyfish-search"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare serpkite tinyfish-search`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/serpkite.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tinyfish-search.json

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