Creativity · MCP — server

MCP Brave Search Server

The MCP Brave Search Server wraps the Brave Search API as a Model Context Protocol tool, letting any MCP client run web and local search queries without routing through Google. It is a common default for Claude Desktop users who want a private, citation-friendly alternative to WebSearch.

MCP facts

Kind: server
Ecosystem: anthropic-mcp
Language: TypeScript / Node.js
Transports: stdio

Capabilities

Tools: brave_web_search for general queries with rank and snippet
Tools: brave_local_search for places and businesses (when enabled)
Returns: titles, URLs, descriptions suitable for LLM citation
Rate limits: respects Brave API plan quotas and backoff

Install

npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search

Configuration

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

Frequently asked questions

How do I get a Brave Search API key?

Sign up at api.search.brave.com, create a subscription (there is a free tier with limited queries per month), and copy the API key into the BRAVE_API_KEY env var of your MCP server config.

How is Brave Search different from Google or Bing for an MCP agent?

Brave uses its own independent index, applies no personalized tracking, and is explicitly developer-friendly. For an agent this means reproducible results across users and cleaner citations.

Can I use Brave MCP alongside other search servers?

Yes — MCP clients can load many servers at once. Teams often register Brave as the general web tool and a domain-specific server (arXiv, internal docs) alongside it.

Sources

modelcontextprotocol/servers — brave-search — accessed 2026-04-20
Brave Search API docs — accessed 2026-04-20