Brave Search MCP
Official Brave Search MCP covering web, local, video, image, news, and AI summary. 965 GitHub stars and 31 commits on main in the last 30 days. Privacy-respecting search index distinct from Google.
“Official Brave Search MCP covering web, local, video, image, news, and AI summary. 965 GitHub stars and 31 commits on main in the last 30 days. Privacy-respecting search index distinct from Google; useful when agents need an independent corpus.”
INSTALL THIS SERVER
{
"mcpServers": {
"brave-search": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
],
"env": {
"BRAVE_API_KEY": "<your-brave-api-key>"
}
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"brave-search": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
],
"env": {
"BRAVE_API_KEY": "<your-brave-api-key>"
}
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"brave-search": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
],
"env": {
"BRAVE_API_KEY": "<your-brave-api-key>"
}
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"brave-search": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
],
"env": {
"BRAVE_API_KEY": "<your-brave-api-key>"
}
}
}
}
{
"mcpServers": {
"brave-search": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"
],
"env": {
"BRAVE_API_KEY": "<your-brave-api-key>"
}
}
}
}
6 SELECTED TOOLS
OUR ASSESSMENT
Brave maintains an official MCP server for the Brave Search API. Six tool categories cover web, local, video, image, news, and AI summarization. Goggles (custom re-ranking definitions) supported on web search. Pro plan unlocks extra_snippets and AI summarization. Privacy-first index returns results distinct from Google or Bing.
- Official Brave maintenance.
- 965 GitHub stars and MIT licence.
- 31 commits on main in the last 30 days.
- Six tool categories (web, local, video, image, news, summarizer) cover most search use cases.
- Privacy-first index gives results distinct from Google or Bing.
- Goggles (custom re-ranking definitions) supported on web search.
- Pro plan unlocks extra_snippets and AI summarization.
- Brave Search API has a free tier with rate limits; Pro features are paid.
- AI summarizer requires a Pro plan for the summary parameter.
- Local search index is most useful for North American business listings; global coverage varies.
BRAVE_API_KEY scopes to a single Brave Search Subscription. Rotate keys via the Brave dashboard. Search results return third-party URLs; treat the result stream as untrusted in the host LLM context.
Agents that need a privacy-respecting search index distinct from Google or Bing; workflows that benefit from Brave Goggles re-ranking; teams running production agents who want six search modalities (web, local, video, image, news, summarizer) from a single MCP.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
RECORDED ADOPTION METRICS
Saved directory snapshots. Record last checked MAY 3, 2026. The review date above does not refresh these figures.
// Recorded note965 stars on the brave/brave-search-mcp-server repo. 31 commits on main in the last 30 days.
// Recorded noteSecond-ranked in search; official Brave vendor signal.
SOURCES & RECORDED CHECKS
These are the directory listings and check details held in this record. Client compatibility, directory listings and installation testing are separate signals. Recorded client names describe the scope of a check; they do not establish a security assessment or a recurring test schedule.
The same server, 5 different lenses. We reconcile these signals into our editorial score, which is why our number sometimes diverges from a directory-aggregate star count.
| Source | Their rating | Their star count | Their downloads | Last synced |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AutomationSwitch This page | 4.4editorial | 965 | — | MAY 3, 2026 |
| PulseMCP | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 3, 2026 |
| MCP.so | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 3, 2026 |
| Glama | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 3, 2026 |
| Smithery | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 3, 2026 |
| Official MCP Registry | — unrated | unavailable | unavailable | MAY 3, 2026 |
// Counts are directory-reported; we don't adjust them. Discrepancies usually come from different snapshot times or star-caching.
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