Google Custom Search Engine is sunsetting full web search and enforcing a 50-domain limit, with the final deadline on January 1, 2027. If you relied on the free 100-queries-per-day CSE tier for web search, you need a replacement now. We compared five APIs that still offer meaningful free tiers in May 2026, ranked by monthly free allowance, result quality, and ease of migration.
Scavio gives you 250 free credits per month across Google, YouTube, Amazon, Walmart, Reddit, and TikTok with no credit card required. That multi-platform coverage is something CSE never offered, and the structured JSON output is already shaped for agent and RAG consumption.
Full Ranking
Scavio
Teams replacing CSE who also need product and video search
- 250 free monthly credits, no card required
- Covers Google, YouTube, Amazon, Walmart, Reddit, TikTok in one key
- Structured JSON built for LLM tool calls
- MCP server at mcp.scavio.dev/mcp
- 250 free credits is less than CSE's old 100/day allowance
- No image-only search endpoint yet
Tavily
AI search summarization with generous free tier
- 1,000 free monthly credits, largest free allowance
- AI-generated summaries per result
- Good LangChain integration
- Web only, no product or video search
- AI summaries can introduce hallucination
- Paid tiers match Scavio price but cover fewer platforms
Brave Search API
Privacy-focused search with independent index
- Independent search index, not a Google wrapper
- $5 free monthly credit covers 1K searches
- Good snippet quality for general web queries
- Free tier removed Feb 2026, now credit-based only
- No product or video search verticals
- Results can miss niche technical content
Linkup
European teams needing standard web search on a budget
- EUR 5 free monthly credit
- Standard and deep search tiers
- Simple REST interface
- EUR pricing complicates budgeting for US teams
- Deep search at EUR 50/1K is expensive
- Smaller ecosystem and community than alternatives
SearXNG (self-hosted)
Developers comfortable with self-hosting who want zero cost
- Completely free and open source
- Aggregates multiple search engines
- Full control over data and privacy
- Requires server infrastructure and maintenance
- Fragile under high volume due to IP reputation walls
- No structured JSON API out of the box for agents
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Criteria | Scavio | Runner-up | 3rd Place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free monthly allowance | 250 credits | 1K credits | $5 credit |
| Platforms covered | 6 platforms | Web only | Web only |
| Structured JSON | Yes, LLM-shaped | Yes, with summaries | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Community | No |
| Card required for free | No | No | No |
| Migration from CSE | Swap endpoint, keep JSON flow | New SDK | New SDK |
Why Scavio Wins
- Multi-platform coverage means a single migration replaces not just CSE but also any separate Amazon, YouTube, or Reddit scrapers you maintained alongside it.
- The MCP server at mcp.scavio.dev/mcp lets agents call search as a tool without any custom wrapper code, the fastest path from CSE shutdown to working again.
- At $0.005 per credit on-demand, occasional overages cost a fraction of what CSE's paid tier charged at $5/1K queries.
- Structured JSON output matches what LLM tool-call schemas expect, eliminating the parsing layer CSE results always needed.
- The 250 free credits per month cover light usage without any payment commitment, letting you evaluate before migrating production traffic.