Best web search and scraping API
for vibe-coded apps
Updated 2026-09-18. Tavily is the pick for most projects. Here is how the options compare, and how to run whichever you choose through a single Squiid key.
Short answer
- Our pick: Tavily. Built for agents rather than humans: one call returns ranked results with the page content already extracted and trimmed to fit a context window.
- Runner-up: Exa. Neural search over the web, which is better when the query is a description of the kind of page you want rather than the words on it.
- Pick something else when: Firecrawl when you need a site crawled into clean markdown for indexing, Brave Search or SerpAPI when you want raw result pages from a specific engine, Apify or ScrapingBee for sites with hard anti-bot defences, and Jina when you just need one URL turned into readable text.
If your app or your agent needs to look something up on the live web, use Tavily. It returns search results with the page text already extracted, which removes the fetch, parse and truncate step that everyone writes badly the first time. The other options here map to specific jobs: crawling, raw SERPs, or defeating bot protection.
How to choose a web search and scraping API for an AI-coded app
Search, crawl, or scrape?
Search returns ranked links for a query. Crawl walks a site and returns its pages. Scrape extracts structured data from one known page. These are three products. Choosing the wrong one is the most common mistake in this category, and it usually shows up as an agent trying to crawl with a search API.
Does it return content or just links?
An agent that gets ten links then has to fetch ten pages is slow, brittle and easy to block. APIs that return extracted, cleaned text in the search response cut latency and code. For agent use this is the single biggest differentiator.
Token cost of the response
Web content is verbose and you are paying twice: once for the search call, once for the tokens you feed into a model. Prefer providers that let you cap content length per result or return summaries, and measure the token bill alongside the API bill.
JavaScript rendering and anti-bot
Many target pages render client side or sit behind bot protection. Basic scrapers will return an empty shell. If your targets are difficult, pay for a service with a browser pool rather than adding retries to something that cannot work.
Freshness and citation
If your feature answers questions about current events, check how recent the index is and whether results carry a source URL and date. Being able to cite the source is often a product requirement, not a nicety.
Compare the options
Every web search and scraping API option Squiid carries in the Web search and scraping category, with what each one is best at and how it bills.
| Service | Best for | Pricing | On Squiid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apify | Marketplace of ready-made scrapers plus a platform to run your own | both | Roadmap |
| Brave Search | Independent web search index with a privacy-focused API | usage | Next up |
| Exa | Neural web search that finds pages by meaning, with full content | usage | Next up |
| Firecrawl | Turn any website into clean markdown or structured data for LLMs | both | Live |
| Jina | Reader, embeddings and reranker APIs for retrieval pipelines | usage | Roadmap |
| ScrapingBee | Scraping API that handles proxies, browsers and blocking for you | both | Roadmap |
| SerpAPI | Structured results from Google, Bing, Maps, Shopping and more | both | Roadmap |
| Tavily | Search API designed for LLM agents, returning clean ranked context | usage | Live |
Why run your web search and scraping API through Squiid
One login instead of one per vendor. Squiid carries 8 web search and scraping API options here and every other layer of the stack beside it. You create one account, click the service you want, and Squiid provisions it upstream. No separate signup, no separate password, no second dashboard.
One bill, at the provider's price. Usage is paid from prepaid Squiid credits at par: $1 of credit is $1 at the provider, with no markup on what the provider charges. The free plan is $0/month with a 15% fee on credit top-ups and a $50 minimum top-up. Solo is $19.97/month and its top-up fee starts at 8%, falling to 6.5%, 5% and 3.5% as trailing 30-day API spend passes $100, $500 and $2,000. Team is $29.97 per seat per month for seats 1-5, $24.97 for seats 6-20 and $19.97 above that, with the same ladder one point lower. Custom pricing is 3% or less against a commitment. Services that are sold as a monthly subscription, such as Tavily's paid plan, pass through on your Squiid invoice at the provider's own price with no fee on top.
Squiid holds the upstream key. The provider credential lives in Squiid, not in your repo, not in a chat window and not in a screenshot. Your project gets one variable, SQUIID_API_KEY, and that is the only secret an agent ever needs to see. Rotating it is one click and does not touch the provider.
It works with every coding agent. Point the SDK base URL at https://api.squiid.io/v1/<service>/ and send Authorization: Bearer $SQUIID_API_KEY. Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, Copilot, Windsurf, Cline, Devin, Replit, v0 and Lovable all read environment variables the normal way. See the gateway convention.
Running out pauses, it never deletes. Squiid warns you at 75%, 90% and 100% of your balance. At zero, calls pause instead of overdrawing, and your data stays where it is. Auto top-up is optional and takes a hard monthly cap. See spend controls.
Set it up in 3 steps
Add Tavily in the dashboard
Create a Squiid account, open the catalogue, and click add on Tavily. Squiid creates the upstream account or project for you and holds the credential.
Put one variable in .env
Copy your Squiid key and add SQUIID_API_KEY=sq_live_… to your project's .env. Delete any provider keys you were carrying. Nothing else changes.
Point your agent at the gateway
Tell your agent that calls go to https://api.squiid.io/v1/tavily/ with Authorization: Bearer $SQUIID_API_KEY. Most SDKs take a base URL option, so it is a one-line change.
In practice that is one line in your project:
SQUIID_API_KEY=sq_live_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThen every call your app or your agent makes goes to the gateway with that one key:
curl https://api.squiid.io/v1/tavily/... \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $SQUIID_API_KEY"Questions people ask
What search API should an AI agent use?
Tavily. It is designed for agent consumption, returning ranked results with extracted page content in one call, so the agent does not need to fetch and parse pages itself. Add it through Squiid and the only secret your project holds is SQUIID_API_KEY.
Tavily or Exa?
Tavily when the query is a normal question and you want content back ready to feed a model. Exa when you are searching by description, for example find blog posts that argue a particular position, where neural retrieval beats keyword ranking. Both are on Squiid under one key.
How do I turn a website into clean text for a RAG index?
Firecrawl. Point it at a domain, get markdown per page, and feed that into your embeddings pipeline. It handles JavaScript rendering and link discovery, which is the part people underestimate when writing their own crawler.
Is scraping with these APIs allowed?
That depends on the target site terms, robots directives and the law where you operate. These APIs make fetching technically easy, not legally clear. Check the target site policy, respect robots.txt and rate limits, and avoid personal data.
How do I stop an agent burning through search credits?
Search calls draw on prepaid Squiid credits at provider prices, with alerts at 75%, 90% and 100% and a pause at zero. A runaway loop stops rather than generating an invoice. Auto top-up, if enabled, has a monthly cap you choose.
One key for your web search and scraping API.
And everything else.
Add Tavily and 107 other services to one account, one key, one bill and one dashboard.