Brave Search MCP

Official Brave Search integration — give AI real-time web search access via the Brave Search API for up-to-date information.

TRUSTED · Official by Anthropic

Web

// Add to your client

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search"],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "<your-brave-api-key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search"],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "<your-brave-api-key>"
      }
    }
  }
}

claude mcp add brave-search -e BRAVE_API_KEY=<your-brave-api-key> -- npx -y @modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search

Paste into your client's MCP configuration file.

// Try it now

"Search the web for the latest news about Anthropic and give me a 3-sentence summary"

! Brave Search is usage-based — free tier has a monthly query cap
! Results come from Brave's independent index, which can differ from Google
! Search quality for highly technical or long-tail queries may vary

Setup

Easy Setup

API key or simple config

Pricing

Free tier

2,000 queries/month free

Free tier is sufficient for personal use. API key required.

Token usage

Light usage

// When to use

You want Claude to have access to current information
You need to research recent events, news, or product releases
You want to verify facts with live data
You're doing market research or competitive analysis

// When NOT to use

You only work with historical data or your own documents
You need deep website content (use firecrawl-mcp for full page scraping)
You have very high search volumes (API costs can add up)

// Usage Scenarios

Research Assistant

Ask Claude to research a topic and synthesize findings from multiple current sources.

Example prompt

"Research the latest developments in AI coding assistants released in 2025"

Fact Checker

Verify specific facts, prices, or statistics with current web data.

Example prompt

"What is the current pricing for Vercel Pro plan? Check the official website."

// About

Plain English

By default, Claude's knowledge has a cutoff date — it doesn't know what happened yesterday. This server fixes that. It gives your AI a search engine so it can look things up on the web in real time. Ask about current events, recent prices, new software versions, or anything that happened recently.

The official Brave Search MCP server integrates Brave's privacy-focused search engine into any MCP-compatible AI assistant. Get real-time web search results, news, and factual information without sending queries to Google.

Requires a Brave Search API key (free tier available). One of the most popular ways to give Claude access to current information.

GitHub 42.0kUpdated Feb 10, 2025MIT

View on GitHub @modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search Official Site