Google API versus Yahoo API
I was wondering how Google and Yahoo stack up since Yahoo released their APIs. Below is a side-by-side comparison of some of the features listed in their documentation. This is not a complete list but it should help you in deciding which APIs to look further into. Yahoo’s Developer Network has tons of documentation and resources. Google also has web API resources.
| Google API | Yahoo API | |
| Number of queries per day: | 1,000 | 5,000* |
| Max results returned per query: | 10 | 50* |
| Web Search: | Yes | Yes |
| Local Search: | No | Yes |
| Image Search: | No | Yes |
| Video Search: | No | Yes |
| News Search: | No | Yes |
| Supports SOAP: | Yes | No |
| Supports REST: | No | Yes |
| Schema describing the APIs: | Yes | Yes |
| Provides a Java library: | Yes | Yes |
| Provides a Perl library: | No | Yes |
| Provides a Python library: | No | Yes |
| Provides a .NET example program: | Yes | No |
| Provides PHP example code: | No | Yes |
| Provides JavaScript example code: | No | Yes |
| Developers can track their daily usage: | Yes | No |
| * Yahoo’s Local Search API returns at most 20 results. It was limited to 1,000 queries per day but they have since upped it to 5,000 and put it in-line with the other Yahoo API limits. | ||
Yahoo limits your amount of queries based on your IP, and not a developer ID. Google limits by a developer ID and you are only allowed one. Therefore Yahoo gives more flexibility in this area. Also, Google’s API has not been updated since August 2002 according to their release notes. And even though Yahoo’s API doesn’t track usage it wouldn’t be hard for a developer to track their own usage. Plus, both APIs return a specific message when you have gone over your limit for the day.
Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo asked what web services people would like to see Yahoo offer months ago. It seems like Yahoo really listens to what developers want and need.
