# TinyFish Search vs You.com APIs

> You.com APIs scores 76.5 (BB) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $5 per 1,000 requests. Category scores…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tinyfish-search-vs-you-com-api
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tinyfish-search-vs-you-com-api.md (~2,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tinyfish-search-vs-you-com-api.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tinyfish-search-vs-you-com-api.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

You.com APIs scores 76.5 (BB) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $5 per 1,000 requests.

- 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
- You.com APIs: grade BB, 76.5/100, rank #30 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/you-com-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/you-com-api.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 53

Also in its favour:
- Cheaper for web search, $0 against $5 per 1,000 requests

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

### You.com APIs (BB)

Good for: An unattended agent that needs search, page text and cited answers and wants to pay per call without an account.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 85 against 50
- Agent ergonomics, 84 against 78
- Payments & pricing, 88 against 45
- Transparency & trust, 58 against 52

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

Watch for: Two API hosts. Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | TinyFish Search | You.com APIs | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 85 | You.com APIs +35 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 82 | even |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 84 | You.com APIs +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 58 | 53 | TinyFish Search +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 45 | 88 | You.com APIs +43 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 78 | 82 | You.com APIs +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 52 | 58 | You.com APIs +6 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.2 · B** | **76.5 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | TinyFish Search | You.com APIs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | TinyFish | You.com |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.search.tinyfish.ai` | `https://api.you.com/v1/search` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for web search | free | $5 per 1,000 requests |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| 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` | `io.github.youdotcom-oss/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-22 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-17 | 2024-08-27 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-12-14 | 2026-09-22 |
| 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 | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk | 4.4k npm/wk, 92k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.8/5 (8) |

## 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.

**You.com APIs.** x402 and MPP on Web Search and Finance Research, with no account needed. Two API hosts. Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io.

## 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

### You.com APIs

1. For unattended runs call GET https://api.you.com/v1/search, handle the 402 and pay with x402. It's half the MPP price for search
2. Use `https://api.you.com/mcp?profile=free` to try search with no key (100 queries a day)
3. Send Answer, Research and Finance Research to api.you.com. On ydc-index.io they fail with 'Missing Authentication Token'
4. Pass `?tools=` with only the tools you need to keep the MCP tool list short
5. On 429, wait for `Retry-After` and watch `X-RateLimit-Remaining` before the next burst

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, TinyFish Search or You.com APIs?

You.com APIs scores 76.5 (BB) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth.

### Which is cheaper for web search, TinyFish Search or You.com APIs?

TinyFish Search, at free against $5 per 1,000 requests for You.com APIs. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

### Do TinyFish Search and You.com APIs need an API key?

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

### Can an agent call TinyFish Search and You.com APIs without installing anything?

Yes. TinyFish Search has a hosted endpoint at https://api.search.tinyfish.ai and You.com APIs at https://api.you.com/v1/search.


## For agents

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

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