Is a Brave Search API key required?

Yes. Create one at brave.com/search/api. The free tier gives you 2,000 queries per month, which covers personal agent use but not production; paid plans start at $3/1000 queries.

How current are the results?

Brave indexes the open web in near-real-time — typical lag from publication to index is a few hours for news and up to a day for long-form content. For breaking news prefer the `news` search type over the default web search.

Why is my API key returning 429s on the free plan?

The free plan also has a per-second rate limit (1 req/s), not just the monthly quota. Agents that fan out parallel searches trip it easily. Either throttle on the client or upgrade to a paid tier that raises the burst limit.

Can I use it for image or video search?

Yes — the MCP exposes web, news, and image search. Video search is routed through the web endpoint with a video filter. The responses include thumbnails, titles, and source URLs.

How does it compare to the Fetch MCP?

Brave returns ranked search results (titles, snippets, URLs); Fetch retrieves the contents of one specific URL. The common pattern: Brave Search to find relevant pages → Fetch to pull the full text of the top hit.

Brave Search

Name: Top MCPs — curated MCP directory
Creator: Top MCPs
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Real-time web search with privacy-focused results.

Score 79(?)BraveMIT 1.1kVerified May 31, 2026Top MCPs for Web Search →

Install View on GitHub

Quick answer

What it does

Queries the Brave Search API for web results, news, and page content summaries in real-time.

Best for

Current events and news
Documentation lookups
Price or product comparisons
Research tasks

Not for

Deep web crawling
Private intranet search

Setup recipe

Pick your client, then follow the three steps.

Install

claude_desktop_config.jsonjson

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "${BRAVE_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Paste under mcpServers. Fully quit and reopen Claude after editing.

CLI or .mcp.jsonshell

# export BRAVE_API_KEY=brv_your_api_key
claude mcp add brave-search -- npx -y @brave/brave-search-mcp-server

Run from your repo. Commit .mcp.json to share with your team.

.cursor/mcp.jsonjson

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "${BRAVE_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Global path: ~/.cursor/mcp.json. Reload window after editing.

.vscode/mcp.jsonjsonc

{
  "servers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "${BRAVE_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code uses the "servers" key (not "mcpServers").

~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.jsonjson

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "${BRAVE_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Open via Cascade → hammer icon → Configure.

cline_mcp_settings.jsonjson

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
      ],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "${BRAVE_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Open via the Cline sidebar → MCP Servers → Edit.

~/.continue/config.jsonjson

{
  "experimental": {
    "modelContextProtocolServers": [
      {
        "transport": {
          "type": "stdio",
          "command": "npx",
          "args": [
            "-y",
            "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
          ],
          "env": {
            "BRAVE_API_KEY": "${BRAVE_API_KEY}"
          }
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Continue uses modelContextProtocolServers with a transport block.

~/.codex/config.tomlshell

# ~/.codex/config.toml
[mcp_servers.brave-search]
command = "npx"
args = [
  "-y",
  "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server",
]
env = { BRAVE_API_KEY = "${BRAVE_API_KEY}" }

Codex uses TOML. Each server is a [mcp_servers.<name>] subtable.

~/.config/zed/settings.jsonjsonc

{
  "context_servers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": {
        "path": "npx",
        "args": [
          "-y",
          "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
        ]
      },
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "${BRAVE_API_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Zed calls them "context_servers". Settings live-reload on save.

ChatGPT → Apps directorynone

Brave Search doesn't ship a hosted HTTPS endpoint today. ChatGPT supports remote MCP servers only — to use this server in ChatGPT you'll need to deploy it to a public HTTPS URL first (e.g. via Cloudflare Workers or Vercel) or wait for an official remote build.

2
Set required secrets
Set BRAVE_API_KEY in your shell environment before launching your MCP client.
3
Try a minimum working prompt
Surface recent blog posts on a topic
Search for the five most recent blog posts about "Model Context Protocol" published in the last 30 days. Return title, publication date, and a one-sentence summary for each.
Tested with: Claude Desktop, Cursor.

Tools & permissions

Tool	Description	Args	Side effects
`brave_web_search`	Run a general web search.	query: string, count?: number	Network
`brave_local_search`	Search for businesses and places near a location.	query: string, count?: number	Network

Security & scope

Access scope: Network
Sandbox: Makes outbound HTTPS calls to the Brave Search API using the key in `BRAVE_API_KEY`. No local filesystem or system access.
Gotchas: The free API tier is rate-limited; the MCP surfaces rate-limit errors verbatim — check logs if queries fail silently.

Agent prompt pack

— copy into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT.

Paste into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT. Edit the [brackets] before sending.

Recommend the best MCP servers for [task: e.g. web search work] in [client: Claude].

Constraints:
- Prefer tools that are [official | open-source | read-only] — pick what matters for my use case.
- Exclude MCPs that require [e.g. a paid plan, OAuth-only flows, remote-only transport].
- Return at most 3 picks, ranked.

For each pick include:
1. One-sentence rationale.
2. The ready-to-paste install snippet for my client.
3. Any required secrets I need to create before installing.

Cross-check the top-mcps.com listing: https://top-mcps.com/top-mcps-for-web-search

Compare Brave Search against a real alternative. Swap the second MCP in [brackets] if you want a different match.

Compare Brave Search MCP vs [Tavily MCP] for the following job: [describe the job, e.g. "let an agent create GitHub issues on bug triage"].

Judge them on:
- Setup time and complexity (what a new user hits first).
- Auth model (none / API key / OAuth 2.1) and credential risk.
- Transport (stdio / Streamable HTTP / SSE) and where the server runs.
- Required secrets and the blast radius if they leak.
- Operational risk in an unattended agent loop.
- Which one is "good enough" for a weekend prototype vs. production.

End with one sentence: which should I pick for my scenario, which is: [my scenario].

References:
- https://top-mcps.com/mcp/brave-search
- top-mcps.com listing for Tavily

Asks the agent to install and verify. Works inside Claude Code, Cursor Agent, Codex CLI.

Install the Brave Search MCP server for my [client: Claude] at the default config path for that client.

Use the exact install snippet published at https://top-mcps.com/mcp/brave-search (fetch https://top-mcps.com/mcp/brave-search.json for the canonical server.json if you can read URLs).

Before finishing:
1. Create the required secrets (BRAVE_API_KEY) and put them in the appropriate env block — do not hard-code them.
2. Restart or reload the client so it picks up the new server.
3. Verify the server is connected (green / running state) and at least one tool is listed.
4. If anything fails, read the client's MCP logs and report the exact error — do not silently retry.

Confirm when done and list the tools the server now exposes.

Frequently asked questions

What changed

— 2 updates tracked.

May 31, 2026
Refreshed install snippets and fact sheet; verified for 2026.
Nov 25, 2024
Initial directory listing.

More Web Search MCPs

Other tools in the same category worth evaluating.

Tavily

Official

AI-optimized web search with cleaned, citation-ready results.

searchwebresearchrag

3 minLow

Exa

Official

Neural web search and page fetch for AI agents — official remote MCP at mcp.exa.ai/mcp.

exasearchneuralretrieval

2 minLow

Perplexity

Official

Search, ask, research, and reason via the official Perplexity MCP.

perplexitysearchresearchsonar

3 minLow

Compared with Brave Search

Side-by-side breakdowns for the choices people most often weigh against this MCP.

Brave SearchvsTavily Brave SearchvsFetch Brave SearchvsPuppeteer Brave SearchvsContext7

Exploring Top MCPs for Web Search? See all Web Search MCPs →

Quick answer

What it does

Best for

Not for

Setup recipe

Install

Set required secrets

Try a minimum working prompt

Tools & permissions

Security & scope

Agent prompt pack

Full details

Frequently asked questions

Is a Brave Search API key required?

How current are the results?

Why is my API key returning 429s on the free plan?

Can I use it for image or video search?

How does it compare to the Fetch MCP?

What changed

More Web Search MCPs

Tavily

Exa

Perplexity

Compared with Brave Search