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Brave Search API vs Linkup

A side-by-side comparison of Brave Search API and Linkup, two Search tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.

Compared from listings verified as of

Brave Search API

Search

Independent search index. Privacy-respecting, non-Google.

View Brave Search API

Linkup

Search

Production-grade web search API for AI agents.

View Linkup

At a glance

Feature comparison of Brave Search API and Linkup
AttributeBrave Search APILinkup
CategorySearchSearch
PricingFREEMIUMFREEMIUM
LicenseProprietaryProprietary
DeploymentCloudCloud
PlatformsAPIAPI
Model supportModel-agnosticModel-agnostic
Vendor (differs)Brave SoftwareLinkup

The honest brief

Brave Search API

One of the few search APIs backed by a genuinely independent crawl rather than resold Bing or Google results.

  • Independent index, not resold Bing/Google
  • Privacy-respecting, no user profiling
  • Free tier available
  • Simple REST API
  • Smaller index than Google
  • Rate limits on free tier
  • Less tuned for AI-answer grounding than Exa/Tavily

Linkup

Tops OpenAI's SimpleQA benchmark for grounded answers, with per-request pricing and a multi-step deep-research endpoint.

  • Strong SimpleQA benchmark result
  • Sourced, cited answers fast
  • Fetch + deep-research endpoints
  • MCP and SDK integrations
  • API-only, no end-user app
  • Deep research can cost up to $2.50/call
  • Newer entrant vs incumbents
Brave Search API detailsLinkup detailsAll Search apps