# Tavily API + MCP vs TinyFish Search

> Tavily API + MCP scores 76.8 (BB) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $7.50 per 1,000 requests. Category…

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- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tavily-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
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- Updated: 2026-10-09

Tavily API + MCP scores 76.8 (BB) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $7.50 per 1,000 requests.

- Tavily API + MCP: grade BB, 76.8/100, rank #25 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tavily-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tavily-mcp.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

### Tavily API + MCP (BB)

Good for: An agent that needs search plus page text in one call and has no account yet.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 90 against 50
- Schema & documentation, 89 against 82
- Payments & pricing, 75 against 45
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 78
- Transparency & trust, 60 against 52

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source

Watch for: x402 covers advanced search only, not extract, map, crawl or research

### 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 52

Also in its favour:
- Cheaper for web search, $0 against $7.50 per 1,000 requests

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


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Tavily API + MCP | TinyFish Search | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 90 | 50 | Tavily API + MCP +40 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 82 | Tavily API + MCP +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 78 | Tavily API + MCP +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 52 | 58 | TinyFish Search +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 75 | 45 | Tavily API + MCP +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 78 | Tavily API + MCP +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 52 | Tavily API + MCP +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **76.8 · BB** | **63.2 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Tavily API + MCP | TinyFish Search |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Tavily | TinyFish |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp/?tavilyApiKey=<key>` | `https://api.search.tinyfish.ai` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP, HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for web search | $7.50 per 1,000 requests | free |
| x402 | payer tooling only | no |
| Licence | 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 | 5 | 28 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.tavily-ai/tavily-mcp` | `ai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent` |
| Last release | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-05-04 | 2026-08-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-11-24 | 2025-12-14 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 2.4k stars, 452k npm/wk, 1.6M PyPI/wk | 9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.6/5 (8) | none |

## Verdicts

**Tavily API + MCP.** Keyless search and extract, plus a free 1,000 credits a month with no card. x402 covers advanced search only, not extract, map, crawl or research.

**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

### Tavily API + MCP

1. Try `X-Tavily-Access-Mode: keyless` first for search and extract. Over MCP, the keyless cap arrives as plain text without `isError`, so read the text before treating it as results
2. Send the key in `Authorization: Bearer`, not `?tavilyApiKey=` in the MCP URL
3. On 429, wait for `Retry-After`. A 432 or 433 means a spend limit, and retrying won't help
4. Run /map before /crawl to bound the crawl, since crawl is billed as map plus extract
5. Research is async and runs 4 to 250 credits. Create the task, then poll /research/{request_id}

### 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, Tavily API + MCP or TinyFish Search?

Tavily API + MCP scores 76.8 (BB) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth.

### Which is cheaper for web search, Tavily API + MCP or TinyFish Search?

TinyFish Search, at free against $7.50 per 1,000 requests for Tavily API + MCP. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

### Do Tavily API + MCP and TinyFish Search need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Tavily API + MCP and TinyFish Search without installing anything?

Yes. Tavily API + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp/?tavilyApiKey=<key> and TinyFish Search at https://api.search.tinyfish.ai.

### Are Tavily API + MCP and TinyFish Search open source?

Tavily API + MCP is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for TinyFish Search.


## For agents

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

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