Ask HN: Alternatives to Bing Search API

[schappim]

Bing has increased the cost of their Search API by 10 times[1], which has caused many users to search for alternative options. As a result, I'm wondering if anyone knows of any legitimate alternatives to the Bing API that I can use. I'd prefer not to use fly-by-night web scraping operators.

Thank you in advance for your help!

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/bing/apis/pricing-update

[ColinHayhurst]

Mojeek Web Search API [0]. Fully independent crawler & index. Currently 6.6 billion pages. Pricing and terms bespoke. Self-disclosure: CEO.

[0] https://www.mojeek.com/services/search/web-search-api/

[leobg → ColinHayhurst]

Why aren’t you listing any prices? How do I know whether you are cheaper than serpapi, for instance? And what does POA mean?

[ColinHayhurst → leobg]

Price On Asking. I'll send you an email.

[culopatin → ColinHayhurst]

What is the reasoning behind price on asking? Makes me not want to ask actually. Is it cheaper if I ask on a Friday than if I ask on a Sunday? Is the pricing different if my domain is registered in an African nation than if it’s registered in the US?

[schappim → culopatin]

If a business does customised pricing, it is so they can maximise revenue. If you’re selling to a bank, you can charge more than what you would to a bootstrapped startup…

[yellow_lead → ColinHayhurst]

Any estimate on bings index size?

[ColinHayhurst → yellow_lead]

Have doubts about this tool but since you ask https://www.worldwidewebsize.com/ ~6.7 billion

[yellow_lead → ColinHayhurst]

Cool, thanks. Just want to compare it to yours (although surely there are other comparisons to be made as well)

[vincent_s]

The only big legitimate ones are Bing and Yandex.

Those web scraping operators are quite professional these days and they're all competing on price. [0] has a recent list.

[0] https://geekflare.com/serp-api/

[hyes]

If you want a cheaper alternative you might have to compromise for web scraping. There really isn't an alternative other than the official API offered by Bing. But if you're interested, I've been using https://serply.io for my Google/Bing searches.

[freediver]

Kagi has a search API. Currently 2.5 cents per search but it is high quality and we will look to bring the price down.

https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-api/overview.html

[freediverx]

I’ve been using Kagi search for a while now. Is their API an option?