BetterWebSearch MCP

Keyless-first. Works out of the box with DuckDuckGo — no API keys. Add BRAVE_API_KEY later for richer ranking & recency.

A local Model Context Protocol server that gives AI agents genuinely better web research: multi-provider search, three-tier page extraction, and deep research — without locking you into a single search API.

Quick start (30 seconds)#

Add this to your MCP client config (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code Copilot, OpenCode, or any MCP client):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "better-web-search-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "better-web-search-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

That’s it. Every search tool works immediately. No .env, no API keys, no setup.

What makes it better#

• Search Better — Aggregated search across DuckDuckGo, Brave, and Tavily — deduplicated, reranked, and query-expanded for better coverage.
• Extract Smarter — Three-tier extraction pipeline: fast HTTP, structured data hydration, then full Playwright browser render — only escalates when needed.
• Deep Research — Rewrites your question into multiple variants, searches in parallel, extracts top results with citations and confidence scores.

Documentation#

• Quickstart — Get running in 30 seconds
• Installation — From source and npx
• Tools Reference — All 6 tools with input schemas
• Configuration — Environment variables
• Providers — Brave, Tavily, DuckDuckGo
• Extraction — 3-tier page extraction pipeline
• Architecture — System design overview
• Changelog — Release history
• Contributing — How to help