OpenClaw Web Search Alternatives: Beyond the Default Brave API

OpenClaw ships with Brave Search as its default web search backend. It works, but it has friction that sends users looking for alternatives. If you’ve hit Brave’s free tier limits or found the results lacking, here are your options.

The Problem With Brave as a Default

Brave Search is a reasonable choice for a default: it has an API, it’s privacy-focused, and it returns decent results for many queries. But in practice, three issues come up often.

You need a separate API key. Brave requires you to sign up for their API program and manage a key. For users who set up OpenClaw expecting a turnkey experience, this is an extra step that feels unnecessary.

Free tier limits are tight. Brave’s free API tier allows a limited number of queries per month. If your OpenClaw bot handles a few users or runs frequent search tasks, you hit the ceiling fast. The paid tier fixes this but adds another subscription to manage.

Result quality varies. Brave’s index is smaller than Google’s. For niche queries, technical documentation, or region-specific results, Brave sometimes returns less relevant results than users expect. It’s fine for popular topics. It struggles with the long tail.

None of these are dealbreakers, but they’re enough to make people look around.

Alternative 1: DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo doesn’t offer an official search API for programmatic use, but community-maintained libraries can scrape its results. The advantage is no API key required and no rate limits (within reason). The downsides: unofficial scraping can break without notice, and DuckDuckGo’s results are sourced from Bing, so you’re trading one index for another.

Best for: users who want zero-config search and can tolerate occasional breakage.

Alternative 2: SearXNG (Self-Hosted)

SearXNG is a metasearch engine you host yourself. It aggregates results from multiple search engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and others) and returns a combined set. You control the instance, so there are no API keys or rate limits beyond what the upstream engines enforce.

The tradeoff is setup and maintenance. You need to run a SearXNG instance somewhere: a VPS, a home server, or a Docker container. It’s not complex, but it’s another service to keep running.

Best for: users who want high-quality aggregated results and don’t mind running infrastructure.

Alternative 3: Google Custom Search

Google’s Custom Search JSON API gives you access to Google’s full index. The results are the best you’ll find, because it’s Google. The free tier allows 100 queries per day. Beyond that, you pay per query.

Setup requires a Google Cloud project, a Custom Search Engine ID, and an API key. It’s more configuration than the other options, but the result quality is hard to beat.

Best for: users who need the best possible search results and can handle Google Cloud configuration.

Alternative 4: MCP Tool Marketplaces

MCP (Model Context Protocol) lets OpenClaw connect to external tool servers. Some of these provide search tools that wrap Google or other engines, handling API keys and billing on the server side. You connect the MCP server to OpenClaw and search works, no separate API key management on your end.

This approach decouples the search backend from your OpenClaw configuration. If the marketplace updates its search provider or adds features, you get the improvements without reconfiguring anything.

Setting Up AgentPatch as Your Search Backend

AgentPatch is an MCP marketplace that provides Google Search (along with dozens of other tools) through a single connection. You sign up for an AgentPatch API key, connect it to OpenClaw, and your bot gets Google-quality search results without you setting up a Google Cloud project or managing a Brave API key.

The results come from Google’s index, so quality matches what you’d get from Google Custom Search. Rate limits are handled on AgentPatch’s side, tied to your account’s plan.

The AgentPatch CLI is designed for AI agents to use via shell access. Install it, and your agent can discover and invoke any tool on the marketplace.

Install (zero dependencies, Python 3.10+):

pip install agentpatch

Set your API key:

export AGENTPATCH_API_KEY=your_api_key

Example commands your agent will use:

ap search "web search"
ap run google-search --input '{"query": "test"}'

Get your API key from the AgentPatch dashboard.

Skill (Recommended)

Install the AgentPatch skill from ClawHub — it teaches OpenClaw when to use AgentPatch and how to use the CLI:

clawhub install agentpatch

MCP Server (Alternative)

If you prefer raw MCP tool access instead of the skill, add AgentPatch to ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "agentpatch": {
        "transport": "streamable-http",
        "url": "https://agentpatch.ai/mcp",
        "headers": {
          "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual key from the AgentPatch dashboard. Restart OpenClaw and it discovers all AgentPatch tools automatically.

Once connected, your OpenClaw bot uses Google Search through AgentPatch whenever it needs web results. You can remove the Brave configuration entirely if you want.

Quick Comparison

Wrapping Up

Brave works fine as a starting point, but it’s not the only option. If you want better results without managing a Google Cloud project, or if you’ve outgrown the free tier, AgentPatch gives your OpenClaw bot Google Search through a single MCP connection. Plus you get access to the rest of the tool marketplace: image search, email, maps, news, and more. See what’s available at agentpatch.ai.