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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

SerpKite vs Valyu

SerpKite and Valyu score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 64.8 (B) and 64.6 (B). Valyu leads on security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do web search.

SerpKiteSerpKite (Anastasia Klimova, trading as SerpKite) · HTTP API B64.8/100#179 of 460 ValyuValyu · HTTP API B64.6/100#182 of 460

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 53
  • Agent ergonomics, 92 against 78

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

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

Valyu B

Good 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

  • Security & auth, 44 against 37
  • Payments & pricing, 45 against 40

Also in its favour

  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 4.5 against 3.5 out of 5
  • No incidents deducted, where SerpKite loses 3 points for them

Watch for

No published rate limits and no Retry-After or backoff guidance

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runSerpKiteValyuEdge
Reliability16%206553SerpKite +12
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29087SerpKite +3
Agent ergonomics13%16.29278SerpKite +14
Security & auth14%17.53744Valyu +7
Payments & pricing10%12.54045Valyu +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88080even
Transparency & trust7%8.87779Valyu +2
Negative events≤15-30
Total64.8 · B64.6 · B

Facts side by side

FactSerpKiteValyu
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorSerpKite (Anastasia Klimova, trading as SerpKite)Valyu
Hosted endpointhttps://api.serpkite.com/v1/searchhttps://api.valyu.ai/v1/search
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
Price for web searchnot published$1.50 per 1,000 pages
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 MITnone
Tools exposed146
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryio.github.SerpKite/serpkitenot listed
Last release2026-10-042026-09-12
Popularity809 npm/wk, 376 PyPI/wk19 stars, 6.7k npm/wk, 7.1k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3.5/5 (2)4.5/5 (2)

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.

Valyu

Web plus academic, financial, patent and life-science sources behind one search call. No published rate limits and no Retry-After or backoff guidance.

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

Valyu

  1. Set max_price and max_num_results on every search to bound cost
  2. Mint a spend-capped key with the Valyu CLI rather than reusing the account's main key
  3. Call valyu_search. The legacy per-vertical MCP tools stop working on 2026-12-01
  4. A 206 means some sources failed. Check which before treating results as complete
  5. DeepResearch is async. Poll valyu_deepresearch_status rather than waiting in one call

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, SerpKite or Valyu?

SerpKite and Valyu score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 64.8 (B) and 64.6 (B). Valyu leads on security & auth and payments & pricing.

Do SerpKite and Valyu need an API key?

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

Can an agent call SerpKite and Valyu without installing anything?

Yes. SerpKite has a hosted endpoint at https://api.serpkite.com/v1/search and Valyu at https://api.valyu.ai/v1/search.

Other comparisons with SerpKite or Valyu

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