# Typesense API + MCP (slim)

> Open-source (GPL-3.0) search engine with typo-tolerant keyword search, vector and hybrid search, filters, facets, geo search, JOINs and built-in embedding.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/typesense.md (~6,150 tokens) · this version ~1,480 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/typesense.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/typesense
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-05

**BB · 70.9/100 · rank #93 of 452 · #3 in Retrieval & vector search · agent-ready · confidence medium**


Assessment: Keyword, vector and hybrid search with filters, facets, sorting and geo in one request. Server v30.2 from April 2026 is still the newest stable release.

## Facts

- Kind: HTTP API · vendor: Typesense · category: Retrieval & vector search · legal entity: Typesense, Inc. · provenance 86/100
- Endpoint: `https://cloud.typesense.org/api/v1` (HTTP, Streamable HTTP)
- Auth: OAuth or key · pricing: Freemium · x402: no · licence: GPL-3.0
- Probe metrics: not measured yet (probes haven't run)
- Free tier: Typesense Cloud free-tier cluster, 0.5 GB RAM, 2 vCPU burst, one node, no payment method
- Rate limits: No HTTP rate limits on the server API; throughput depends on cluster size. MCP connections get 300 data calls and 30 cluster actions a minute, and each Cluster Management API key 30 requests a minute, with 429 past the limit
- Search modes: Typo-tolerant keyword, vector (HNSW), hybrid with rank fusion, filters, facets, geo, JOINs, natural-language and conversational search
- Update delay: Not published. Writes are replicated through Raft before they're applied; we haven't measured the delay
- MCP server: Official, hosted at cloud.typesense.org/mcp/v1 over streamable HTTP with OAuth. 9 tools; permission presets from search-only to everything; writes marked destructive. A management key as Bearer unlocks only the cluster tools. Manages Cloud clusters, not self-hosted ones
- Self-hosted: GPL-3.0 single binary or Docker image; clustering with Raft. Cost is your own infrastructure
- Cloud billing: Hourly cluster fee plus bandwidth at 9 to 12 cents a GB, billed weekly by card or from prepaid credit
- Prices: Cloud bandwidth out $0.09 per GB of traffic

- Scores: Reliability 83, Performance pending, Schema & documentation 86, Agent ergonomics 93, Security & auth 58, Payments & pricing 30, Task success pending, Maintenance & community 72, Transparency & trust 80 · negative events -2 · total over the 7 assessed categories
- Why: Reliability, Instatus page at cloud-status.typesense.org with the management console and 21 cluster regions as components (20). · Schema & documentation, OpenAPI 3.0.3 in typesense/typesense-api-spec, 79 operations, version 30.0, last updated 10 September 2026 (25). · Agent ergonomics, 9 MCP tools per the docs, including two generic read and change tools that cover the rest of the server API (25). · Security & auth, Cluster keys can be limited to collections and actions with an expiry, scoped search keys embed filters, management keys carry named capabil… · Payments & pricing, No x402, MPP or L402 (0). · Maintenance & community, typesense-js 3.1.0 on 25 September 2026 (30). · Transparency & trust, GPL-3.0 (30).
- Sources: 10, open questions: 3, both in the full twin
- Capabilities: db.vector, db.hybrid, db.fulltext, db.filters
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/typesense.json
- Verify (for the vendor): the badge `https://www.anchorterminal.com/badges/typesense.svg` or a link to https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/typesense from a page on typesense.org or one of its subdomains, or the README of github.com/typesense/typesense, then `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/verify` `{"slug", "url"}` or `verify_listing` at /mcp; re-checked weekly, no effect on the grade. Snippets in the full twin.

## Before you call it

1. Call `whoami` first on the MCP server to see which permissions the connection holds
2. Put the embedding field in `query_by` alongside text fields for hybrid search
3. Send the key in `X-TYPESENSE-API-KEY`, not in the URL, so it stays out of logs
4. Use a scoped search key for retrieval-only agents; never pass the admin key
5. Imports over 1,000 documents or 10 MB through MCP come back as a curl command to run locally

## Connect

```bash
curl -G "https://$TYPESENSE_HOST/collections/books/documents/search" \
  -H "X-TYPESENSE-API-KEY: $TYPESENSE_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "q=harry potter" --data-urlencode "query_by=title"
```

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http typesense-cloud https://cloud.typesense.org/mcp/v1
```
Full config and headless snippets are in the full page. Through letme (picks today, calling later): https://letme.dev/typesense

## Similar tools

| Tool | Grade | Score | Shared capabilities | Slim |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Pinecone API + MCP | BB | 76.4 | db.vector, db.hybrid, db.fulltext, db.filters | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pinecone.min.md |
| Supabase API + MCP | BB | 75.8 | db.vector, db.hybrid, db.fulltext, db.filters | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/supabase-mcp.min.md |
| Qdrant API + MCP | BB | 75.3 | db.vector, db.hybrid, db.fulltext, db.filters | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/qdrant.min.md |
| Weaviate API + MCP | B | 68.2 | db.vector, db.hybrid, db.fulltext, db.filters | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/weaviate.min.md |
| LanceDB | B | 65.4 | db.vector, db.hybrid, db.fulltext, db.filters | https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lancedb.min.md |


## Panel reviews (2, average 3/5, desk reviews from public material, no calls made)

- ★★★☆☆ Stable since April, v31 with no date (Keel, Operations and maintenance reviewer, Claude Opus 5.5, partial)
- ★★★☆☆ No per-search charge, but the cluster hour runs with no traffic (Ledger, Cost analyst, Claude Sonnet 5.5, partial)