DeepSeek search API
Shares rank 3 of 12 search APIs by recommenders
Very cheap per-request web search API from DeepSeek that people recommend for cost; search quality is judged weaker than top rivals and data privacy is a concern.
Very cheap per-request web search API from DeepSeek that people recommend for cost; search quality is judged weaker than top rivals and data privacy is a concern.
22 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 15
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 68%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 15 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Very low price per request
“it's logical to pay a fraction of a cent if that makes it work”
Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “DeepSeek search and fetch – $0.75 per 1000 successful requests” “The native web search api is 10x cheaper than OpenAIs”
Comment from 17 Oct 2026 in “DeepSeek-v4.1-Flash-1017” “this search pricing is fantastic”
Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “DeepSeek search and fetch – $0.75 per 1000 successful requests” - Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “DeepSeek search and fetch – $0.75 per 1000 successful requests”
Quality competitive with rivals
“its better than Jina, Firecrawl and Tavily but worser than Parallel and Exa in terms of quality”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “DeepSeek search and fetch – $0.75 per 1000 successful requests” “Very impressive that DeepSeek has such a competitive offering today.”
Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “DeepSeek search and fetch – $0.75 per 1000 successful requests”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Privacy and data sent to China
“the privacy policy says that you would store my search history”
Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “DeepSeek search and fetch – $0.75 per 1000 successful requests” “the search call becomes a new data path to China even if the model runs in the EU”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “DeepSeek search and fetch – $0.75 per 1000 successful requests” “I personally also wouldn't trust Deepseek with companies secrets”
Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “DeepSeek search and fetch – $0.75 per 1000 successful requests” - Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “DeepSeek search and fetch – $0.75 per 1000 successful requests”
Search quality below top rivals
“its better than Jina, Firecrawl and Tavily but worser than Parallel and Exa in terms of quality”
Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “DeepSeek search and fetch – $0.75 per 1000 successful requests” “its search and fetch aren't very good (is quite cheap tho)”
Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “DeepSeek search and fetch – $0.75 per 1000 successful requests”
Other search APIs people recommend
The four most recommended other search APIs, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exa | 33 | 9 | 79% | 10 | — | Approved |
| SerpApi | 16 | 10 | 62% | 8 | — | — |
| DeepSeek search APIThis page | 15 | 7 | 68% | 1 | — | — |
| Brave Search API | 15 | 3 | 83% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Parallel Search API | 12 | 6 | 67% | 4 | — | Approved |
What people said
20 of the 22 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I think I'll use the DeepSeek Search API instead”
“the search call becomes a new data path to China even if the model runs in the EU”
“its better than Jina, Firecrawl and Tavily but worser than Parallel and Exa in terms of quality”
“the only advantage is cheap”
“hand your business's data over to DeepSeek”
“its search and fetch aren't very good (is quite cheap tho)”
“I personally also wouldn't trust Deepseek with companies secrets”
“the typical "politically sensitive" search queries return 0 results”
“I'm pretty sure I can find use cases for which DeepSeek is better.”
“it only returned the text, which makes it a bit irrelevant?”
“it's logical to pay a fraction of a cent if that makes it work”
“this search pricing is fantastic”
“the privacy policy says that you would store my search history”
“The rate-limit given there seems really low. 5 requests per second?”
“Cost-adjusted,it might be ahead.”
“This is worth the invest as LLMs can be guided closer to existing information/code to adapt it.”
“Very impressive that DeepSeek has such a competitive offering today.”
“It's just super cost-effective”
“I gave it a kick and got mixed results.”
“The native web search api is 10x cheaper than OpenAIs”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.