Brave Search.
Independent web index — privacy-first search and API for builders.
What it is.
San Francisco-based search engine running on its own independent web index — one of fewer than ten in the world that does not depend on Google or Bing. Brave Search ships free to consumers with no tracking, and exposes a paid API that has become a default grounding layer for AI builders. Goggles, the open-ranking system, lets users and communities define their own result ordering.
Where it fits.
Privacy-conscious consumers replacing Google, and AI builders needing a Bing-API alternative for RAG and agent grounding. The Brave Search API powers retrieval inside Perplexity, You.com, and a long tail of vertical search products. Strongest where index independence and pricing predictability matter more than absolute long-tail recall.
- Independent index — not reselling Google or Bing
- API pricing predictable for AI grounding workloads
- Goggles allow community-defined result ranking
- Long-tail recall behind Google on obscure queries
- Brand recognition trails DuckDuckGo in privacy-search category
Frequently asked.
Is Brave Search really independent?
Yes. Brave operates its own crawl and index for the vast majority of queries. A small fraction of results draw on third-party feeds, disclosed in the index-independence metric.
Can I use Brave Search inside an agent stack?
Yes. The Brave Search API is one of the most common Bing-API replacements for RAG grounding. Pricing starts at $3 per 1K queries with volume tiers above.
What are Goggles?
User-defined ranking layers. Anyone can publish a Goggle that reorders Brave Search results — promoting independent sites, demoting SEO farms, or scoping to a specific topic.
