Open WebUI

The change is one engine and two fields

Open WebUI's External engine posts each search to the URL you give it, with the key as a Bearer token, and reads back a list of links, titles and snippets. SpecStream answers that call at /openwebui/search. Set it in the admin settings, or as environment variables when you deploy.

# Admin settings, Web Search
Web Search Engine            google_pse  ->  external
External Web Search URL      https://api.specstream.ai/openwebui/search
External Web Search API Key  your SpecStream key

# The same as environment variables
ENABLE_WEB_SEARCH=true
WEB_SEARCH_ENGINE=external
EXTERNAL_WEB_SEARCH_URL=https://api.specstream.ai/openwebui/search
EXTERNAL_WEB_SEARCH_API_KEY=$SPECSTREAM_API_KEY

This is the call Open WebUI sends, and the shape it reads back:

curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/openwebui/search \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "Who founded Mistral AI and when?", "count": 3}'

# [{"link": "https://...", "title": "...", "snippet": "..."}, ...]

GOOGLE_PSE_API_KEY and GOOGLE_PSE_ENGINE_ID can stay where they are. Open WebUI reads them only while the engine is google_pse.

What you see when the Google key fails

Open WebUI's google_pse.py sends key and cx to https://www.googleapis.com/customsearch/v1 and calls raise_for_status() on the reply. A key Google refuses ends the search with an HTTP error, and the chat answers without web results. On November 2, 2025 a user reported in issue 18870: "I get 403 from Google in the exception stack from Open WebUI."

Google closed the API to new customers, so a new Google Cloud project gets no key for it. Issue 20961 quotes Google's January 1, 2027 date and calls the Google PSE option "useless now". A new engine setting fixes it: a new Google key is not on offer.

Or keep a SearXNG engine with no instance to host

If your Open WebUI runs the SearXNG engine, set Searxng Query URL to SpecStream's SearXNG route with your key in the address. Open WebUI adds nothing to the URL, so it ends in /search. The reply is SearXNG's JSON: results[] with title, url and content.

Web Search Engine   searxng
Searxng Query URL   https://api.specstream.ai/searxng/YOUR_SPECSTREAM_KEY/search

$5 per 1,000 searches, with no daily limit

A search of up to 10 results costs $0.005, and each started block of 10 more results adds $0.006. Open WebUI asks for 3 results a search unless you change the result count. There is no monthly plan and no daily limit. Credit you buy never expires, and a new account starts with $10 of credit, which covers 2,000 searches.

The most accurate web search API in the world

On SimpleQA Verified the SpecStream Search API scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official questions, 978 of them correct. On WideSearch it scores 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official 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, measured under load

The External search route runs on the fast search. On November 9, 2026 production took 1, 5, 10 and 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. One account can send up to 8,800 searches a minute; a call over that is answered with Retry-After and is not charged.

You decide what is kept, on each key

Give Open WebUI a key with zero_retention and a search made with it 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. spend_cap_cents is the most the key can spend.

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

The same key reads up to 20 pages or documents a call with the Extract API at $0.80 per 1,000 pages, and a page with no text is not charged. Deep Search takes a request in plain words and returns every match on the live web as structured rows, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row, with a source URL on every value. The most a run can cost is quoted before it starts.

Google PSE, until January 1, 2027

Existing customers can keep the engine until Google ends the API: $5 per 1,000 queries after 100 free a day, up to 10,000 a day. After that date the engine has no API to call. SpecStream costs the same $5 per 1,000, with no daily limit, and takes a new account today.

Vertex AI Search

Google's named alternative, for searching up to 50 domains, at $1.50 per 1,000 queries on Standard and $4.00 on Enterprise. For full web search Google asks you to contact it. SpecStream searches the whole live web from the first call, at $5 per 1,000.

Brave Search API

A search API on Brave's own index at $5 per 1,000 requests, with $5 in free credits every month and 50 queries per second. Open WebUI fixes Brave's address in its code and has no Brave loader. SpecStream does search and loader from one key.

Tavily

Search billed in credits at $0.008 each on pay as you go, with 1,000 free credits a month. A basic search is 1 credit and an advanced search 2. SpecStream charges $0.005 a search, with no monthly reset.

Firecrawl

Search and scraping billed in credits. Search costs 2 credits per 10 results, the free plan holds 500 searches, and the Hobby plan is $19 a month. SpecStream has no plan to buy: each search is $0.005 from your balance.