What is the best MCP servers, plugins and skill for web research?

By tashan's measured score: Exa, Firecrawl · firecrawl, Reddit MCP Buddy, Redditapis, Phdtaketaketake. the score combines upkeep and freshness, gated by real adoption — every input is public and linked to its source.

Who does web research as part of their job?

This is a process step performed by Surveyors, per the O*NET 30.3 occupational database.

How is the ranking calculated?

From public signal only: npm download volume and publish cadence, GitHub push/release recency, contributor count, registry status, and how often a capability appears in real public agent configs. Nobody can pay to change a score, rank, or listing.

The Index · Web research

Web research

'Research' in the desk sense — finding current information beyond training data. tashan measures 68 capabilities for this work. Ranked on upkeep, freshness and real adoption, every input public. How we measure ›

#	Capability	tashan	Evidence	Health
1	Exa primary npm deep	83	20k/wk	active
2	Firecrawl · firecrawl primary plugin deep	68	542 ★	active
3	Reddit MCP Buddy primary npm deep	63	2k/wk	active
4	Redditapis primary npm deep	57	228/wk	active
5	Phdtaketaketake primary plugin deep	53	32 ★	active
6	Bluesky primary npm deep	50	121/wk	active
7	Perplexity API Platform primary npm solid	81	30k/wk	active
8	Exa · exa-labs primary plugin solid	76	5k ★	active
9	Last30days primary plugin solid	76	54k ★	active
10	Blockrun primary npm solid	68	636/wk	active
11	Tavily · tavily-ai primary plugin solid	65	433 ★	active
12	Nimble primary plugin solid	64	50 ★	active
13	Firecrawl · firecrawl primary plugin solid	64	174 ★	active
14	Search1api primary npm solid	61	394/wk	active
15	Parallel primary plugin solid	57	62 ★	active
16	Antigravity · MarcosNahuel primary plugin solid	53	21 ★	active
17	Serpapi Claude Plugin primary plugin solid	52	13 ★	active
18	Releases primary plugin solid	45	3 ★	active
19	Trends Hub primary npm solid	38	1k/wk	abandoned
20	Stepfun primary npm solid	37	624/wk	active
21	Travel Search And Booking API And Skills primary plugin	56	880 ★	active
22	Brightdata Plugin primary plugin	50	4 marketplaces	—
23	Context7 · anthropics primary plugin	46	2 marketplaces	—
24	Feedpik primary npm	43	25/wk	active
25	Comparative Landscape Brief primary plugin	40	1 marketplaces	active
26	Learn · agent-sh primary plugin	40	2 ★	active
·	Research primary skill	not scored yet	9 repos	active
·	Brave Search · modelcontextprotocol primary npm ✓ Anthropic deprecated	not scored yet	13k/wk	abandoned
29	Brave Search Skills primary plugin thin	60	161 ★	active
30	Tinyfish primary plugin thin	55	14 ★	active
31	Wigolo supporting npm deep	59	2k/wk	active
32	Novada supporting npm deep	59	347/wk	active
33	Scavio supporting npm deep	54	133/wk	active
34	One Search supporting npm deep	53	189/wk	active
35	Agent Search supporting npm deep	52	225/wk	active
36	SERPdive Web Search supporting npm deep	48	124/wk	active
37	Netlens supporting npm deep	47	75/wk	active
38	Firecrawl supporting npm solid	86	27k/wk	active
39	Tavily supporting npm solid	81	17k/wk	active
40	SearXNG Search supporting npm solid	74	9k/wk	active
41	Vaaya supporting npm solid	65	518/wk	active
42	Google Surf supporting npm solid	54	374/wk	active
43	Webhound supporting npm solid	54	267/wk	active
44	Vaaya CLI supporting npm solid	54	164/wk	active
45	Auxiliar supporting npm solid	54	158/wk	active
46	Myclaw Toolkit supporting npm solid	51	127/wk	active
47	Taskfleet supporting npm solid	50	280/wk	active
48	Web Search supporting npm solid	50	82/wk	active
49	Deep Research · Perufitlife supporting npm solid	40	71/wk	active
50	Serpjet supporting npm solid	39	33/wk	active
51	You.com Web Access & AI supporting npm	72	500/wk	active
52	Smart Web supporting npm	64	598/wk	active
53	Lastsearch supporting npm	61	971/wk	active
54	Signalfuse supporting npm	57	243/wk	active
55	My Websearch supporting npm	55	303/wk	active
56	Dex Data supporting npm	52	175/wk	active
57	Trawlia supporting npm	52	172/wk	active
58	Secret supporting npm	48	78/wk	active
59	Google Custom Search supporting npm	48	66/wk	active
60	Emet supporting npm	47	90/wk	active
61	Deep Search supporting npm	47	38/wk	active
62	Intel Asrai supporting npm	44	3k/wk	abandoned
63	DeepSeek Websearch supporting npm	42	30/wk	active
64	Webpeel supporting npm	39	155/wk	active
65	Search · caikiji supporting npm	39	47/wk	active
66	Jakeliume Webpeel supporting npm	35	46/wk	active
67	Openwebninja supporting npm thin	44	52/wk	active
68	Superhighway supporting npm thin	42	59/wk	active

Who does this work

O*NET records this as a core process step for 1 occupations, including Surveyors.

Recorded there as: "Research topics in area of expertise" / "Conduct research to gain information about products or processes" / "Analyze information obtained from news sources". We publish it under the name practitioners use.

Recently changed in Web research

62 changes recorded here in the last 45 days, newest and most serious first.

2026-08-05 Search1api — search1api now reaches credentials
2026-08-05 Brave Search · modelcontextprotocol — @modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search was marked deprecated on npm
2026-08-05 One Search — one-search-mcp now reaches browser
2026-08-05 SearXNG Search — mcp-searxng now reaches network

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Other work

Agent configuration Agent development Animation and generated imagery Application development Attribution Audio production Audit Bookkeeping Browser automation CAD modelling Career development Code review Content marketing Contract review Copy editing Copywriting Customer support Dashboards and reporting Data pipelines Data quality Database access Debugging Design critique Document production Exploratory data analysis Financial modelling Hardware design Incident response Infrastructure and deployment Knowledge management Literature review Logistics and fulfilment ML engineering Market analysis Messaging and email Model evaluation Observability PRDs and specs Performance optimisation Process automation Product strategy Project management Prompt engineering Query optimisation Recruiting and hiring Regulatory compliance Retrieval systems Risk assessment SEO Sales pipeline Scientific research Security review Software architecture Statistical modelling Technical documentation Test automation Training material User research Version control Video editing Visual design Web development Web scraping

Occupational data from the O*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, used under CC BY 4.0. tashan consolidated its process steps into the terms practitioners use; O*NET does not endorse this site.

See the full Index ›

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62 changes across Web research in the last 45 days. A new advisory, an install script appearing, a maintainer leaving. All listed free above. Pro keeps the series behind each row, so a number today comes with a direction.

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