# Brave Search MCP Server

> Brave's official MCP server for web, news, image, video, local and place search plus summaries.

## Facts
- **Category:** [MCP Servers](https://agentsearchengine.app/category/mcp-servers)
- **Type:** MCP server
- **Pricing:** Open source
- **GitHub stars:** 1,460
- **Language:** TypeScript
- **License:** MIT
- **Last repo activity:** today (Sep 23, 2026)
- **Official site:** https://github.com/brave/brave-search-mcp-server
- **Source code:** https://github.com/brave/brave-search-mcp-server
- **Listing on Agent Search Engine:** https://agentsearchengine.app/agents/brave-search-mcp
- **Data verified:** September 2026

## Best for
Adding an independent web search index to an MCP client.

## Avoid if
You don't have a Brave Search API key; every tool calls that API.

## About Brave Search MCP Server
Brave's official MCP server integrates the Brave Search API, with tools for web, local business, place, image, video and news search, an LLM context tool and AI summarization. It runs over stdio by default, with an HTTP transport available. Version 2 stopped returning base64 image data from image search to save context.

## Connect to an MCP client
Launch command from the project's README: `BRAVE_API_KEY=<your-api-key> npx -y @brave/brave-search-mcp-server`

### Claude Code (Run in your terminal)

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

### Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json or .cursor/mcp.json)

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

### VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json)

```json
{
  "servers": {
    "brave-search-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "<your-api-key>"
      }
    }
  }
}
```

### Claude Desktop (claude_desktop_config.json)

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

### Codex (~/.codex/config.toml)

```toml
[mcp_servers.brave-search-mcp]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "@brave/brave-search-mcp-server"]
env = { BRAVE_API_KEY = "<your-api-key>" }
```

## Alternatives
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- [github-mcp-server](https://agentsearchengine.app/agents/github-mcp-server) — GitHub's official MCP Server · Open source · MCP server · 33k★ · Go · MIT · active today
- [serena](https://agentsearchengine.app/agents/serena) — A powerful MCP toolkit for coding, providing semantic retrieval and editing capabilities - the IDE for your agent · Open source · SDK / library · 30k★ · Python · MIT · active today
- [MCP for Blender (blender-mcp)](https://agentsearchengine.app/agents/blender-mcp) — Connect Blender to Claude or any LLM client for prompt-driven 3D modelling and scene editing. · Open source · MCP server · 29k★ · Python · MIT · active 2 days ago
- [fastmcp](https://agentsearchengine.app/agents/fastmcp) — The fast, Pythonic way to build MCP servers and clients. · Open source · SDK / library · 28k★ · Python · Apache-2.0 · active today

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