Which kind of search API do you need?
For an agent that needs sources, compare ranked URLs and usable excerpts. For a rank tracker, compare search-engine results, location controls and SERP features. For a researched answer, include model behavior and synthesis cost. Those are different contracts, even when each product has a search box.
| Your job | Start here | Check before choosing |
|---|---|---|
| Find sources for an AI agent | Agent-search shortlist | Source relevance, excerpts, filtering and total task cost |
| Reduce time spent waiting on tools | Fastest search API evidence | Exact mode, p50/p95, failures and required follow-up calls |
| Reduce request spend | Search API pricing comparison | Minimum spend, credit units, add-ons and successful tasks |
| Try before adding a card | Free search API options | Recurring allowance versus one-time grant and account requirements |
| Collect Google or other engine results | SERP API directory | Engine, country, device, result features and freshness |
Compare search providers side by side
Our Exa, Perplexity and Parallel comparisons include the same dated retrieval fixtures. Other pairs compare documented product behavior and pricing, without inventing head-to-head test scores.
Web retrieval
| Provider | What to compare | Evidence coverage |
|---|---|---|
| Exa | Search modes, highlights and a separate Contents endpoint. | Our nine-attempt report + external coverage |
| Perplexity Search | Ranked sources through Search; answer generation is a separate API. | Our nine-attempt report + external coverage |
| Parallel Search | Objective-led retrieval with excerpts and multiple search modes. | Our nine-attempt report + external coverage |
| Brave Search API | Web results and LLM Context are separate response surfaces. | NEEDLE by Keenable; Artificial Analysis Search Index; Openbenchmarks company news |
| Context.dev | Search with optional highlights or page Markdown; separate Answers and News products. | NEEDLE by Keenable; Openbenchmarks company news |
| Tavily | Credit-priced search with basic and advanced depth settings. | NEEDLE by Keenable; Openbenchmarks company news; Exa open benchmark harness |
| Linkup | Search and sourced research, with distinct depth and output choices. | NEEDLE by Keenable; Openbenchmarks company news |
| You.com | Search results, highlights and additional research tools. | NEEDLE by Keenable; Artificial Analysis Search Index; Openbenchmarks company news |
| Valyu | Search-provider candidate for web and specialist retrieval workloads. | Directory candidate; no score assigned |
| Kagi | Search API included in NEEDLE's retrieval inventory. | NEEDLE by Keenable |
| Jina AI | Search and Reader-style content retrieval; check token accounting. | NEEDLE by Keenable |
| Octen | Web search and highlights alongside specialist search surfaces. | NEEDLE by Keenable; Artificial Analysis Search Index |
| Keenable | Search provider and publisher of the NEEDLE evaluation. | NEEDLE by Keenable |
| Seltz | Web documents and a separate answer interface. | Openbenchmarks company news |
| DeepSeek Search | Search configuration listed in NEEDLE; do not confuse it with model API pricing. | NEEDLE by Keenable |
Search and extraction
| Provider | What to compare | Evidence coverage |
|---|---|---|
| Firecrawl | Search, scrape, map and crawl share a credit-based platform. | NEEDLE by Keenable; Artificial Analysis Search Index; Openbenchmarks company news |
| TinyFish | Search endpoint evaluated separately from browser-agent automation. | NEEDLE by Keenable; Openbenchmarks company news |
| Nimble | Search configurations differ by focus, depth and content settings. | Artificial Analysis Search Index; Openbenchmarks company news; Tako VerticalRTK |
| Ceramic | Provider listed in Tako's real-time answer evaluation. | Tako VerticalRTK |
SERP data
| Provider | What to compare | Evidence coverage |
|---|---|---|
| SerpApi | Structured search-engine results across multiple engines and features. | Directory candidate; no score assigned |
| Serper | Google-result API with prepaid query packs. | NEEDLE by Keenable |
| SearchApi.io | Search-engine data; NEEDLE's Bing adapter is a specific configuration. | NEEDLE by Keenable |
| DataForSEO | Live and queued SERP data plus keyword research APIs. | Directory candidate; no score assigned |
| Bright Data | SERP collection within a broader web-data platform. | Directory candidate; no score assigned |
| Oxylabs | Search-engine collection within a scraping API platform. | Directory candidate; no score assigned |
| Zenserp | Search-engine result collection and structured output. | Directory candidate; no score assigned |
| ValueSERP | Google-centered SERP retrieval candidate. | Directory candidate; no score assigned |
| Scrapingdog | Google Search API within a general scraping service. | Directory candidate; no score assigned |
| ScraperAPI | Structured search data alongside URL scraping and proxies. | Directory candidate; no score assigned |
Model-native tools
| Provider | What to compare | Evidence coverage |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI Web Search | Hosted search used inside a model workflow, not a bare SERP response. | NEEDLE by Keenable; Artificial Analysis Search Index |
| Anthropic Web Search | Model-integrated search; account for both tool and model usage. | NEEDLE by Keenable |
Specialist data
| Provider | What to compare | Evidence coverage |
|---|---|---|
| Tako | Answer-oriented retrieval evaluated on time-sensitive research. | Tako VerticalRTK |
| PredictLeads | Company news index included in Openbenchmarks' specialist cohort. | Openbenchmarks company news |
| Autobound | Company-event data candidate, not a general web-search substitute. | Openbenchmarks company news |
| Datahyena | Dedicated company-news provider in the Openbenchmarks inventory. | Openbenchmarks company news |
What this directory does and does not cover
The inventory contains 35 researched candidates and benchmark-listed providers as of the review date. It is not a claim to enumerate every search service, an endorsement of every supplier, or a ranking of untested products. Listings without a review page link to their provider or discovery source.
Algolia, Typesense, Meilisearch, Elasticsearch and similar systems primarily search a corpus you supply. Browser infrastructure such as Browserbase, Spider and Scrapfly can help fetch pages, but that does not make them equivalent to a ranked public-web search endpoint.
Keep benchmark methodology, published prices and MCP setup as separate decisions. A low request price or high score in someone else's harness is a starting hypothesis for your workload, not its outcome.
Sources and review dates
Documentation review: October 27, 2026. Our own measured retrieval runs: August 23, 2026. External reports retain their publisher and measurement window.
- All Them APIs retrieval run
- NEEDLE by Keenable
- Artificial Analysis Search Index
- Openbenchmarks company news
- Exa open benchmark harness
- Parallel evaluation notes
- Tako VerticalRTK
Corrections: email faizank@docsalot.dev with an official source.