# TinyFish Search vs Valyu

> Valyu scores 64.6 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth. Both do web search. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tinyfish-search-vs-valyu
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tinyfish-search-vs-valyu.md (~2,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tinyfish-search-vs-valyu.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tinyfish-search-vs-valyu.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

Valyu scores 64.6 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth. Both do web search.

- 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
- Valyu: grade B, 64.6/100, rank #311 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/valyu.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/valyu.json

## Which one, for what

### 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 44

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

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

### 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:
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 82
- Transparency & trust, 78 against 52

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


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | TinyFish Search | Valyu | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 53 | Valyu +3 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 87 | Valyu +5 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 78 | even |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 44 | TinyFish Search +14 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 45 | 45 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 78 | 80 | Valyu +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 52 | 78 | Valyu +26 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.2 · B** | **64.6 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | TinyFish Search | Valyu |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | TinyFish | Valyu |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.search.tinyfish.ai` | `https://api.valyu.ai/v1/search` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for web search | free | $1.50 per 1,000 pages |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | 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 | none |
| Tools exposed | 28 | 6 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `ai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-12 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-17 | 2025-10-20 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-12-14 | 2025-10-20 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk | 19 stars, 6.7k npm/wk, 7.1k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 4.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**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

### 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

### 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, TinyFish Search or Valyu?

Valyu scores 64.6 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth.

### Do TinyFish Search and Valyu need an API key?

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

### Can an agent call TinyFish Search and Valyu without installing anything?

Yes. TinyFish Search has a hosted endpoint at https://api.search.tinyfish.ai and Valyu at https://api.valyu.ai/v1/search.


## For agents

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

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- [Brave Search API + MCP vs TinyFish Search](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brave-search-mcp-vs-tinyfish-search.md)
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