Open WebUI web search

The whole setup is two fields and a key

Open WebUI's External engine sends each search to the URL you give it and reads back a list of links, titles and snippets. SpecStream answers that call at /openwebui/search, and the External loader at /openwebui/loader reads the result pages for the model. Set them in the admin settings, or as environment variables when you deploy.

# Admin settings, Web Search
Web Search Engine            external
External Web Search URL      https://api.specstream.ai/openwebui/search
External Web Search API Key  your SpecStream key
Web Loader Engine            external
External Web Loader URL      https://api.specstream.ai/openwebui/loader
External Web Loader 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=$SPECSTREAM_API_KEY
WEB_LOADER_ENGINE=external
EXTERNAL_WEB_LOADER_URL=https://api.specstream.ai/openwebui/loader
EXTERNAL_WEB_LOADER_API_KEY=$SPECSTREAM_API_KEY

This is the call Open WebUI sends, and what comes back. The key travels as a Bearer token from the API key field.

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": "..."}, ...]

Four more engines take a SpecStream address

Keep the engine you run today and change its address. SpecStream answers SearXNG's JSON, Firecrawl v2, Bing v7 and Tavily, each on its own path, with the key in the field Open WebUI already has for it. Open WebUI adds nothing to the Searxng Query URL, so it ends in /search; the Firecrawl field gets /v2/search and /v2/scrape added by Open WebUI.

# SearXNG engine
Searxng Query URL            https://api.specstream.ai/searxng/YOUR_KEY/search

# Firecrawl engine (search and loader)
Firecrawl API Base URL       https://api.specstream.ai/firecrawl
Firecrawl API Key            your SpecStream key

# Bing engine
Bing Search V7 Endpoint      https://api.specstream.ai/v7.0/search
Bing Search V7 Subscription Key  your SpecStream key

# Tavily engine (environment only)
TAVILY_API_BASE_URL=https://api.specstream.ai/tavily

$5 per 1,000 searches, and you pay only for what runs

Open WebUI asks for 3 results a search unless you change the result count, and any search of up to 10 results costs $0.005. Each started block of 10 more results adds $0.006. A loader batch costs $0.80 per 1,000 pages read, and a page with no text costs nothing.

No monthly plan is needed and no credit resets. A top-up never expires, and a call stopped by a 429 charges nothing. 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 gets a 429 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. It is not in the history and its log lines carry neither. 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}'

Every search reads the live web

SpecStream reads the web at the moment of the call, so a page published an hour ago can be in the answer your users get. There is no Programmable Search Engine to configure and no list of sites to keep.

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.

Google PSE

Open WebUI's Google engine calls the Custom Search JSON API, which is closed to new customers. Existing customers pay $5 per 1,000 queries after 100 free a day, up to 10,000 a day, until January 1, 2027. SpecStream costs the same $5 per 1,000 with no daily limit, and any new account can start today.

Bing Search V7

Microsoft retired the Bing Search APIs on August 11, 2025, so the default endpoint in Open WebUI no longer answers. Keep the engine and set Bing Search V7 Endpoint to https://api.specstream.ai/v7.0/search: SpecStream answers in Bing's webPages.value shape 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, so Brave cannot read the result pages for you. SpecStream does both, 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, and answers Tavily's own call at https://api.specstream.ai/tavily.

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. Set Firecrawl API Base URL to https://api.specstream.ai/firecrawl and each search is $0.005 and each page $0.0008, with no plan to buy.