The best web search MCP servers for Claude, Cursor, and Cline

Exa’s guide compares eight Model Context Protocol web search servers for AI assistants such as Claude, Cursor, and Cline, focusing on hosting, API-key requirements, free allowances, and available search, extraction, crawling, and answer-generation tools. It distinguishes hosted options, including Exa, Tavily, and Perplexity, from locally run servers such as Brave, Serper, DuckDuckGo, WebSearch-MCP, and Open-WebSearch, noting that hosted services simplify installation and maintenance while local tools offer more control. The guide recommends servers according to needs, such as Exa for token-efficient result highlights with full-page retrieval, Serper for Google results, Brave for image and video search, Perplexity for direct answers, Tavily for crawling, and keyless local tools for simpler search. It also provides setup instructions for connecting Exa MCP to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, and Cline through a hosted URL, OAuth, or API key, and explains that Claude Code’s tool-search mechanism generally prevents multiple connected servers from consuming excessive context-window space.

Use this post, company, and trend context to find content marketing opportunities, perform competitive analysis, or address product feature gaps via the Plushcap MCP server or the Plushcap API.