A European web search API: a French company, servers in Madrid
SpecStream SAS is a French company based in Narbonne, and its production servers run on IBM Cloud in Madrid, Spain. SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. Its Search API answers a question from the live web for $5 or €5 per 1,000 searches, under a GDPR data processing agreement, and no model is trained on your work. SpecStream leads WideSearch (60.9, on the low-cost model; the best other API scores 57.6 even on the larger model) and SimpleQA Verified (99), with every score and its cost on the benchmarks page.
New accounts get $10 of credit for their first 30 days, no card.
SpecStream and other search APIs, for European teams
| SpecStream | Staan | Brave | Exa | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Company | SpecStream SAS, Narbonne, France | Operator not named | San Francisco office listed | Not stated |
| Where production runs | IBM Cloud, Madrid, Spain | EU data centres, country not named | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data processing agreement | GDPR agreement, published with its subprocessors | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| Model training on your work | None | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| Price per 1,000 searches | $5 or €5 | €2 web search, €4 for AI | $5 | $4 to $15, by mode |
| Pay in euros | Yes, the same numbers as in dollars | Prices in euros | Not stated | Not stated |
| Best WideSearch score | 60.9, on the low-cost model | Not stated | Not stated | 55.9, on the larger model |
| Page text | $0.80 per 1,000 pages; a page with no text is not charged | Not stated | Not stated | $1 per 1,000 pages |
| Free start | $10 of credit for 30 days, no card | 1,000 searches a month | $5 of credit a month | $10 of credit at sign-up, no card |
| Full lists, monitoring and delivery | Deep Search rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1, rerun hourly to yearly and delivered to Slack, email, a sheet, a CRM or a webhook | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
Why European teams choose SpecStream
A French company, servers in Madrid
SpecStream SAS is based in Narbonne, France. Production runs on IBM Cloud in Madrid, and the legal notice names Compagnie IBM France as the host. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Accounts pay in euros or dollars, the same numbers in either, and visitors in the EU see euros by default.
A GDPR agreement you read before you sign up
The data processing agreement is published, with its categories of subprocessors, where each sits and the safeguard for any transfer. Hosting and databases are in the European Union. SpecStream emails account owners at least 30 days before it adds or replaces a subprocessor. No model is trained on your work, and the security page covers the rest.
The most accurate web search API in the world
SpecStream scores 60.9 on WideSearch on the low-cost model, at $39.4 per 1,000 tasks. The best other API reaches 57.6 on the larger model, at $692. The same key reads pages with the Extract API at $0.80 per 1,000 and returns full lists as structured rows with Deep Search. Source URL and read time on every value.
Other European projects
OpenWebSearch.eu and Jina
OpenWebSearch.eu is an EU-funded pilot of an open web index, with no product price published. Jina lists an EU residency option marked experimental among its Reader settings, and its page does not say whether it covers search.
How SpecStream scores
The same numbers as the benchmarks page, from the official tasks and scorers.
| SpecStream |  Parallel |  Exa |  Tavily |  Perplexity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web researchWideSearch, GPT-5.6 Luna | 60.9 | 45.5 | 53.0 | 47.9 | 47.0 |
| Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Luna | 96 | 94 | 91 | 94 | 94 |
| Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Sol | 99 | 97 | 91 | 92 | 95 |
Start on SpecStream
Create a key under Agents & API in the workspace. New accounts get $10 of credit for 30 days, no card. Then send a question in any language:
curl "https://api.specstream.ai/v1/web-search?q=Qui%20a%20fond%C3%A9%20Mistral%20AI%20et%20quand%20%3F" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer <key>"The reply carries answer with its page and seen_at, the rows with the facts asked for, and every result read in sources. Call it as web_search(q=...) in Python or webSearch({ q }) in TypeScript, or from any MCP client with the search_web tool at https://api.specstream.ai/mcp.
Frequently asked questions
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Is SpecStream a European company?
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Sources
SpecStream wrote this page. Each rival figure comes from that company's own page.
- Staanstaan.ai/, read Nov 8, 2026
- Brave Search APIbrave.com/search/api/, read Nov 8, 2026
- Exa pricingexa.ai/pricing, read Nov 8, 2026
- Exa securityexa.ai/docs/reference/security, read Nov 8, 2026
- Jinajina.ai/, read Nov 8, 2026
- SpecStream legal noticespecstream.ai/legal, read Nov 8, 2026
- SpecStream data processing agreementspecstream.ai/dpa, read Nov 8, 2026
- Other providers' benchmark scores, September 9, 2026parallel.ai/benchmarks, read Nov 8, 2026
- SpecStream pricingspecstream.ai/pricing, read Nov 8, 2026
- SpecStream for agentsspecstream.ai/agents.md, read Nov 8, 2026