# Valyu vs You.com APIs

> You.com APIs has a score of 76.9 (BB) against Valyu's 64.6 (B). Both do web search. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 43 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/valyu-vs-you-com-api
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/valyu-vs-you-com-api.md (~1,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/valyu-vs-you-com-api.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/valyu-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: 2026-10-05

You.com APIs has a score of 76.9 (BB) against Valyu's 64.6 (B). Both do web search. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 43 points.

- Valyu: grade B, 64.6/100, rank #179 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/valyu.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/valyu.json
- You.com APIs: grade BB, 76.9/100, rank #24 of 452. 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

Pick Valyu for schema & documentation (+5), transparency & trust (+16).

Pick You.com APIs for reliability (+32), agent ergonomics (+6), security & auth (+9), payments & pricing (+43).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Valyu | You.com APIs | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 53 | 85 | You.com APIs +32 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 82 | Valyu +5 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 84 | You.com APIs +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 44 | 53 | You.com APIs +9 |
| 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) | 80 | 82 | You.com APIs +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 63 | Valyu +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **64.6 · B** | **76.9 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Valyu | You.com APIs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Valyu | You.com |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.valyu.ai/v1/search` | `https://api.you.com/v1/search` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | none | none |
| Tools exposed | 6 | 6 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.youdotcom-oss/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-09-12 | 2026-09-22 |
| Popularity | 19 stars, 6.7k npm/wk, 7.1k PyPI/wk | 4.4k npm/wk, 92k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4.5/5 (2) | 3.8/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**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

### 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

### 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

## Other comparisons with Valyu or You.com APIs

- [Brave Search API + MCP vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brave-search-mcp-vs-valyu.md)
- [Brave Search API + MCP vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brave-search-mcp-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [Exa API + MCP vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-valyu.md)
- [Exa API + MCP vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [Firecrawl MCP vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-valyu.md)
- [Firecrawl MCP vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [Linkup vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-valyu.md)
- [Linkup vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/linkup-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [Parallel Search and Task APIs vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/parallel-search-api-vs-valyu.md)
- [Parallel Search and Task APIs vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/parallel-search-api-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [SearchAPI.io vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/searchapi-io-vs-valyu.md)
- [SearchAPI.io vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/searchapi-io-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [SerpApi vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpapi-vs-valyu.md)
- [SerpApi vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serpapi-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [Serper vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serper-vs-valyu.md)
- [Serper vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/serper-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [Tavily API + MCP vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tavily-mcp-vs-valyu.md)
- [Tavily API + MCP vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/tavily-mcp-vs-you-com-api.md)
- [Fetch (MCP reference server) vs Valyu](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-valyu.md)
- [Fetch (MCP reference server) vs You.com APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fetch-reference-server-vs-you-com-api.md)