Serper vs Brave Search API in 2026

Both calls answered on one key

You do not have to pick one API and rewrite the other. Each call keeps its path, its body and its parser. The address changes, and the key.

# Serper: before
curl -X POST https://google.serper.dev/search -H "X-API-KEY: $SERPER_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"q": "open source vector databases", "num": 10}'
# Serper: after
curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/serper/search -H "X-API-KEY: $SPECSTREAM_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"q": "open source vector databases", "num": 10}'

# Brave: before
curl "https://api.search.brave.com/res/v1/web/search?q=open+source+vector+databases&count=10" -H "X-Subscription-Token: $BRAVE_KEY"
# Brave: after
curl "https://api.specstream.ai/res/v1/web/search?q=open+source+vector+databases&count=10" -H "X-Subscription-Token: $SPECSTREAM_KEY"

The parameter and field tables are in the Serper guide and the Brave Search API guide.

What stays the same

On the Serper route, q, num (1 to 100), page and tbs work as on Serper, and gl, hl, location and autocorrect are accepted and echoed in searchParameters. credits stays 1, so code that counts it keeps working. On the Brave route, q, count (1 to 20), offset (0 to 9) and freshness work as on Brave, and operators inside q such as site: shape the search.

Not returned: Serper's knowledgeGraph, peopleAlsoAsk and relatedSearches, and its images, news, maps, places, videos, shopping, scholar, patents and autocomplete paths. Brave's extra_snippets and summarizer key; page_age comes back only on results that carry a date.

One price on both routes, from credit that does not expire

Serper's packs are valid for 6 months, and Brave's free credits arrive as $5 a month. SpecStream charges $0.005 for a search of up to 10 results on both routes, each started block of 10 more adds $0.006, and credit you buy never expires. There is no plan to pick, and a call stopped by a 429 charges nothing.

The most accurate web search API in the world

The SpecStream Search API scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions, 978 of them correct, and 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official WideSearch tasks. The Extract API scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. Every score and its method is on the benchmarks page.

About one second a search, with no limit per key

Every drop-in route runs the fast search unless the call asks for page text or results past the first ten. 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; a busy call gets a 429 with Retry-After and is not charged.

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: it is not in the history, its answer is not reused for another call, and its log lines carry neither.

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 and rows on one key

A search API returns links and snippets, and your product still has to read the pages and build its records. On SpecStream the same key reads up to 20 pages or documents a call with the Extract API at $0.80 per 1,000 pages, maps and crawls a site at the page price, and runs Deep Search, which returns every match on the live web as structured rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row. The most a run can cost is approved before it starts. Saved requests rerun hourly to yearly, with each row labeled changed, unchanged or no longer matching, and new rows arrive in Slack, a sheet, a CRM or a signed webhook.

SerpApi

Google results pages as JSON, sold month to month. Starter costs $25 a month for 1,000 searches and guarantees 200 successful searches an hour. SpecStream answers SerpApi's call at https://api.specstream.ai/serpapi, and $25 pays for 5,000 searches.

Tavily

A search API for agents billed in credits: a basic search is 1 credit and an advanced search 2, at $0.008 a credit pay as you go. SpecStream answers Tavily's call at https://api.specstream.ai/tavily for $0.005 a search.

Exa

Search on Exa's own index, at $7 per 1,000 requests on auto and $4 on lite. SpecStream answers Exa's POST /search at https://api.specstream.ai/exa for $5 per 1,000, whatever type you send.

Firecrawl

Search and page endpoints billed in credits: a search costs 2 credits per 10 results, and the Standard plan is $99 a month for 100,000 credits. SpecStream answers Firecrawl's v2 calls at https://api.specstream.ai/firecrawl, with no monthly plan.