Linkup vs You.com in 2026

Keep both calls and change two lines

Your Linkup call and your You.com call keep their bodies, their headers and their parsers. Each one changes its address, and both carry the same key.

# Linkup: was https://api.linkup.so/v1/search
curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/linkup/v1/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"q": "Who founded Mistral AI and when?", "depth": "fast", "outputType": "searchResults"}'

# You.com: was https://ydc-index.io/v1/search
curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/you/v1/search \
  -H "X-API-Key: $SPECSTREAM_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "Who founded Mistral AI and when?", "count": 10}'

A team that has not chosen yet writes to either format and moves nothing later. The parameter by parameter tables are in the Linkup migration guide and the You.com migration guide.

What each path reads and returns

On /linkup/v1/search, by POST or GET, q, depth, maxResults from 1 to 100, includeDomains, excludeDomains, fromDate and toDate work as on Linkup. outputType takes searchResults, which returns results[] with type, name, url and content, and sourcedAnswer, which returns answer and sources[]. structured gets 400 with the reason. In linkup-sdk, set base_url to https://api.specstream.ai/linkup/v1.

On /you/v1/search, by GET or POST, query, count from 1 to 100, offset from 0 to 9, freshness, include_domains and exclude_domains work as on You.com, and both domain lists together get 422, as on You.com. The reply has results.web[] with url, title, description, snippets and page_age when the page has a date, and metadata. extraction with extraction_mode highlights adds contents.highlights at no extra cost. results.news and results.knowledge are not returned. In the youdotcom Python SDK, pass server_url="https://api.specstream.ai/you" to you.search.

$1 per 1,000 searches, page text included

Linkup prices a search by depth and output, from $0.005 to $0.055. You.com charges $0.005 a call for up to 100 results, and page text read live adds $1.00 per 1,000 pages. On SpecStream a search of up to 10 results is $0.001 on either path, highlights and page text included. Up to 40 results a call, SpecStream costs less than You.com: 40 results are $0.0046. There is no monthly plan, a top up never expires, and a call stopped by a 429 charges nothing.

The most accurate web search API in the world

The SpecStream Search API scores a 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions, with 978 correct. Linkup reports a 94% F-score on the same benchmark. On WideSearch SpecStream scores 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official tasks, and the Extract API scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. The scores and the method are at specstream.ai/benchmarks.

About one second a search, read live

Every search reads the live web at the moment of the call. On November 9, 2026 production took 1 to 20 fast searches a second and answered 718 of 720: the median was 0.82 s at 1 search a second and 1.07 s at 20 a second, and the 95th percentile stayed between 1.09 and 1.73 s. There is no limit per key and no daily limit.

Zero retention on any key

Set zero_retention when you create a key, or later. A search made with that key keeps no request text and no answer after the reply. The charge keeps the account, the key, the request ID, the price and the time.

curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/v1/account/keys \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "production", "scopes": ["account:read", "finds:spend"], "spend_cap_cents": 500000, "zero_retention": true}'

Search, pages, crawls and rows on the same key

The same key reads up to 20 pages a call with the Extract API at $0.80 per 1,000 pages, and a page with no text is not charged. It runs Deep Search, which returns every match on the live web as structured rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row. 10,000 rows with 5 facts each cost $500, and the most a run can cost is approved before it starts.

Tavily

Search in credits at $0.008 a credit pay as you go, 1 credit for a basic search and 2 for an advanced one, with 1,000 free credits every month. SpecStream answers Tavily's POST /search at https://api.specstream.ai/tavily, in Tavily's JSON, at $0.001 a search.

Parallel

Search at $1 per 1,000 requests in turbo and fast and $5 in basic and advanced, with 600 requests a minute. SpecStream answers Parallel's POST /v1/search at https://api.specstream.ai/parallel, in Parallel's JSON, with no limit per key.

Exa

Search on its own index at $4 per 1,000 requests on lite and $7 on auto, for up to 10 results. SpecStream answers Exa's POST /search at https://api.specstream.ai/exa, in Exa's JSON, at $0.001 a search.

Brave Search API

Results from Brave's own index at $5 per 1,000 requests, with $5 in free credits every month. SpecStream answers Brave's GET /res/v1/web/search at https://api.specstream.ai, at $1 per 1,000 searches.