{"slug": "serpapi", "name": "SerpApi", "category": "search", "category_name": "Search", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 10, "warners": 3, "score": 0.968, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-11-14", "latest": "2026-10-25", "why": "The unlock: SerpAPI. One clean API that returns real-time search data with a free tier that's actually usable.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 5, "compare": 0, "warn": 3}, "spark": [1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "The unlock: SerpAPI. One clean API that returns real-time search data with a free tier that's actually usable.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "serpapi.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://serpapi.com", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["SerpApi", "SerpAPI"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 767831361, "item_id": 47989460, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47989460", "by": "noashavit", "date": "2026-05-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The unlock: SerpAPI. One clean API that returns real-time search data with a free tier that's actually usable.", "excerpt": "I built a search intelligence tool with AI and vibes. The vibes ran out in 30 minutes. Here\u2019s what happened. It started as a Claude artifact. Hardcoded queries for topics I track closely, auto-refreshing regularly. It worked, but lacked flexibility. So I upgraded to Claude Code. Built a frontend and a backend. On-demand search, multiple API calls, trend charts, and AI summaries. Then I hit a wall. 30 mins in I was ou", "context": "", "use_case": "real-time search data API", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 747829216, "item_id": 46739326, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46739326", "by": "Autumrose34", "date": "2026-01-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "When SerpApi helps developers and researchers do it, Google sues", "excerpt": "Google sued SerpApi for doing exactly what Google does: providing access to publicly available information. When Google does it, they claim it supports 'openness' and 'competition'. When SerpApi helps developers and researchers do it, Google sues... to stifle competition? SerpApi's general counsel, Chad, explains why this lawsuit isn't just about SerpApi. It's about who controls access to public data and whether copy", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google vs. SerpApi: Threatening Access to Public Data"}, {"id": 734829856, "item_id": 45926866, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45926866", "by": "anandxrfeu", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I built https://radar-de-precos.netlify.app using SerpApi", "excerpt": "Hello David! Would love to be considered for the Portuguese Developer Advocate position. I built https://radar-de-precos.netlify.app using SerpApi and even wrote about it here https://dev.to/tamilchelvan/criando-uma-ferramenta-de-comparacao-de-precos-com-o-serpapi-1913. The Portuguese-speaking (esp Brazilian) developers remain underserved by localized documentation and tutorials. Expanding this content and partnering", "context": "Applying for a developer advocate role", "use_case": "Search API for a price tool", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2025)"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 802524832, "item_id": 50157802, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50157802", "by": "porker", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Based on their published pricing the cheapest is over $9 per 1000 searches", "excerpt": "How are you getting to $1.50 with SERP API? Based on their published pricing the cheapest is over $9 per 1000 searches https://serpapi.com/pricing", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "DeepSeek search and fetch \u2013 $0.75 per 1000 successful requests"}, {"id": 751550928, "item_id": 46971933, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46971933", "by": "peddling-brink", "date": "2026-02-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "And they are getting sued.", "excerpt": "And they are getting sued. https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-security/serpapi-lawsuit/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I taught GPT-OSS-120B to see using Google Lens and OpenCV"}, {"id": 747708304, "item_id": 46731769, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46731769", "by": "cubefox", "date": "2026-01-23", "stance": "warn", "quote": "\"Why we\u2019re taking legal action against SerpApi\u2019s unlawful scraping\"", "excerpt": "\"Why we\u2019re taking legal action against SerpApi\u2019s unlawful scraping\" https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-security/serpapi-lawsuit/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google is ending full-web search for niche search engines"}]}], "who": [{"by": "michaelgifford", "context": "Founder-engineer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48797464", "date": "2026-07-05"}, {"by": "anandxrfeu", "context": "Applying for a developer advocate role", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45926866", "date": "2025-11-14"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["flight deal search", "serp gap analysis", "real-time search data api", "search result scraping api", "search api for a price tool"], "compared": [{"slug": "react", "name": "React", "co": 6, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "ruby-on-rails", "name": "Ruby on Rails", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "mongodb", "name": "MongoDB", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "github", "name": "GitHub", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 798867200, "item_id": 49929200, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49929200", "by": "hartator", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "SerpApi is the leading API to scrape and parse search engine results.", "excerpt": "SerpApi | https://serpapi.com | Junior to Senior Fullstack Engineer multiple positions | Customer Success Engineer | Hiring Coordinator | Python/Ruby/PHP/Js/Rust/Kotlin/C#/Crystal/Nim/Elixir Developer Advocate positions | Based in Austin, TX but remote-first structure | Full-time | ONSITE or FULLY REMOTE | $150K - 180K a year 1099 for US or local avg + 20% for outside the US SerpApi is the leading API to scrape and p", "context": "", "use_case": "Scraping search engine results", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2026)"}, {"id": 792506336, "item_id": 49531646, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49531646", "by": "hartator", "date": "2026-09-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "SerpApi is the leading API to scrape and parse search engine results.", "excerpt": "SerpApi | https://serpapi.com | Junior to Senior Fullstack Engineer multiple positions | Customer Success Engineer | Hiring Coordinator | Python/Ruby/PHP/Js/Rust/Cotlin/C#/Crystal/Nim/Elixir Developer Advocate positions | Based in Austin, TX but remote-first structure | Full-time | ONSITE or FULLY REMOTE | $150K - 180K a year 1099 for US or local avg + 20% for outside the US SerpApi is the leading API to scrape and p", "context": "", "use_case": "Search results scraping API", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2026)"}, {"id": 785374224, "item_id": 49085889, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49085889", "by": "SerpApi", "date": "2026-07-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "SerpApi employee here.", "excerpt": "SerpApi employee here. We published our perspective on the dismissal, including why we think the ruling matters for companies that rely on access to public web data: https://serpapi.com/blog/google-v-serpapi-the-court-granted-our-motion-to-dismiss/", "context": "SerpApi employee", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped"}, {"id": 784623216, "item_id": 49038951, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49038951", "by": "SerpApi", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Here is our response", "excerpt": "Here is our response: https://serpapi.com/blog/google-v-serpapi-the-court-granted-our-motion-to-dismiss/", "context": "", "use_case": "search results scraping API", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Lawsuit Against SerpApi over Scraping Search Results Has Been Dismissed"}, {"id": 783085744, "item_id": 48942859, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48942859", "by": "hartator", "date": "2026-07-16", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "The article forgot to mention that Goggle is suing us, SerpApi the main alternative. Our take: https://serpapi.com/blog/google-v-serpapi-motion-to-dismiss-why-were-in-the-right/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Kills Custom Search API on Jan 1, 2027"}, {"id": 767626368, "item_id": 47976648, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47976648", "by": "hartator", "date": "2026-05-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "SerpApi is the leading API to scrape and parse search engine results.", "excerpt": "SerpApi | https://serpapi.com | Junior to Senior Fullstack Engineer multiple positions | Customer Success Engineer | Hiring Coordinator | Python/Ruby/PHP/Js/Rust/Cotlin/C#/Crystal/Nim/Elixir Developer Advocate positions | Based in Austin, TX but remote-first structure | Full-time | ONSITE or FULLY REMOTE | $150K - 180K a year 1099 for US or local avg + 20% for outside the US SerpApi is the leading API to scrape and p", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2026)"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45800465", "title": "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2025)", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50232415", "title": "Show HN: Directory 958 inspirational artisans, craftspeople, smiths, for post-AI", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50138531", "title": "DeepSeek search and fetch \u2013 $0.75 per 1000 successful requests", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49922569", "title": "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2026)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49896975", "title": "ChatGPT Pro 500", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49522897", "title": "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2026)", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {"warn": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {"warn": 1, "neutral": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 803718674, "item_id": 50232417, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50232417", "by": "shanedevane", "date": "2026-10-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "with some SerpAPI", "excerpt": "This was/is a passion project; it's now a directory/web crawler of 958+ makers (artisans, craftspeople, smiths, authors), focusing on interesting people building interesting things around the world. TECH STACK: Selenium/Chrome drive the 'WOBBOT' crawler, with some SerpAPI, Pyton/bs4/html5lib/pillow/spaCy does named-entity extraction, some docling, and DeepSeek v3/v4 (with Ollama/qwen3:4b/gemma4:26b) used for evaluati", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Directory 958 inspirational artisans, craftspeople, smiths, for post-AI"}, {"id": 802524832, "item_id": 50157802, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50157802", "by": "porker", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Based on their published pricing the cheapest is over $9 per 1000 searches", "excerpt": "How are you getting to $1.50 with SERP API? Based on their published pricing the cheapest is over $9 per 1000 searches https://serpapi.com/pricing", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "DeepSeek search and fetch \u2013 $0.75 per 1000 successful requests"}, {"id": 798389312, "item_id": 49899332, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49899332", "by": "Xcelerate", "date": "2026-09-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "For flights, SerpApi (to get Google Flights data) in combination with seats.aero pro.", "excerpt": "For flights, SerpApi (to get Google Flights data) in combination with seats.aero pro. I use data from those services with a MILP library where I provide various travel and cost constraints. Runs periodically and notifies me of any good deals. I don't know if my setup actually does much more than the more expensive paid services already out there, but I can at least customize it a lot more to my liking to avoid a lot ", "context": "", "use_case": "flight deal search", "switched_from": "", "story": "ChatGPT Pro 500"}, {"id": 780759424, "item_id": 48797464, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48797464", "by": "michaelgifford", "date": "2026-07-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "a SERP gap analyzer built on SerpApi in ~2 hours", "excerpt": "Location: Nashville, TN (US Central) Remote: Yes \u2014 remote-first preferred, full overlap with any US timezone Willing to relocate: No (occasional travel abroad, always on US hours) Technologies: JavaScript/TypeScript, Next.js, React, Node.js, Python, PostgreSQL/SQL, scraping & data pipelines (Firecrawl, DataForSEO, SerpApi, SEC EDGAR/XBRL), Stripe/Square/webhooks, AI-assisted engineering workflows R\u00e9sum\u00e9/CV: https://g", "context": "Founder-engineer", "use_case": "SERP gap analysis", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2026)"}, {"id": 771438480, "item_id": 48214905, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48214905", "by": "hartator", "date": "2026-05-20", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "https://serpapi.com/blog/google-v-serpapi-motion-to-dismiss-why-were-in-the-right/", "excerpt": "While they seem against being scraped themselves: https://serpapi.com/blog/google-v-serpapi-motion-to-dismiss-why-were-in-the-right/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Declaring War on the Web"}, {"id": 767831361, "item_id": 47989460, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47989460", "by": "noashavit", "date": "2026-05-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The unlock: SerpAPI. One clean API that returns real-time search data with a free tier that's actually usable.", "excerpt": "I built a search intelligence tool with AI and vibes. The vibes ran out in 30 minutes. Here\u2019s what happened. It started as a Claude artifact. Hardcoded queries for topics I track closely, auto-refreshing regularly. It worked, but lacked flexibility. So I upgraded to Claude Code. Built a frontend and a backend. On-demand search, multiple API calls, trend charts, and AI summaries. Then I hit a wall. 30 mins in I was ou", "context": "", "use_case": "real-time search data API", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 762500721, "item_id": 47656295, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47656295", "by": "noashavit", "date": "2026-04-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Just bring your own SerpAPI key (free).", "excerpt": "Type in any topic, or person to get: \u2192 AI analyst overview \u2192 Search trends \u2192 Most relevant search results \u2192 Most recent LinkedIn posts about Topic / by Person Just bring your own SerpAPI key (free). \u2192 Live app: https://noas-search.lovable.app/ \u2192 Git rep: https://github.com/noashavit/noas-search I built this as I experiment with a couple coding agents. I'm sure there's a lot to improve and would love the feedback!", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 751550928, "item_id": 46971933, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46971933", "by": "peddling-brink", "date": "2026-02-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "And they are getting sued.", "excerpt": "And they are getting sued. https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-security/serpapi-lawsuit/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I taught GPT-OSS-120B to see using Google Lens and OpenCV"}, {"id": 747829216, "item_id": 46739326, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46739326", "by": "Autumrose34", "date": "2026-01-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "When SerpApi helps developers and researchers do it, Google sues", "excerpt": "Google sued SerpApi for doing exactly what Google does: providing access to publicly available information. When Google does it, they claim it supports 'openness' and 'competition'. When SerpApi helps developers and researchers do it, Google sues... to stifle competition? SerpApi's general counsel, Chad, explains why this lawsuit isn't just about SerpApi. It's about who controls access to public data and whether copy", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google vs. SerpApi: Threatening Access to Public Data"}, {"id": 747708304, "item_id": 46731769, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46731769", "by": "cubefox", "date": "2026-01-23", "stance": "warn", "quote": "\"Why we\u2019re taking legal action against SerpApi\u2019s unlawful scraping\"", "excerpt": "\"Why we\u2019re taking legal action against SerpApi\u2019s unlawful scraping\" https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-security/serpapi-lawsuit/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google is ending full-web search for niche search engines"}, {"id": 738647120, "item_id": 46165445, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46165445", "by": "icyfox", "date": "2025-12-05", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used Serp via API many moons ago.", "excerpt": "I used Serp via API many moons ago. The most interesting part of the company imo is their legal defense of different plans: Production - $150 15,000 searches / month U.S. Legal Shield ie. \"Our U.S. Legal Shield protects your right to crawl and parse public search engine data under the First Amendment. We assume scraping and parsing liability for customers on most recurring plans unless your usage is illegal.\" I imagi", "context": "", "use_case": "search result scraping API", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: SerpApi MCP Server"}, {"id": 734829856, "item_id": 45926866, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45926866", "by": "anandxrfeu", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I built https://radar-de-precos.netlify.app using SerpApi", "excerpt": "Hello David! Would love to be considered for the Portuguese Developer Advocate position. I built https://radar-de-precos.netlify.app using SerpApi and even wrote about it here https://dev.to/tamilchelvan/criando-uma-ferramenta-de-comparacao-de-precos-com-o-serpapi-1913. The Portuguese-speaking (esp Brazilian) developers remain underserved by localized documentation and tutorials. Expanding this content and partnering", "context": "Applying for a developer advocate role", "use_case": "Search API for a price tool", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2025)"}]}