ODEN vs Bing Search API — the 2026 replacement

TL;DR — Microsoft retired the Bing Search APIs in August 2025. If you were using Bing Web Search to power an LLM or agent, you need a replacement. ODEN is a natural one for that use case: instead of a results page you assemble yourself, one EU-hosted call returns a synthesized answer plus citations ready for a model. This page is about migrating cleanly.

The Bing Web Search API returned search-engine results — organic links, snippets and rich answers — as JSON. Teams used it as the retrieval layer under chatbots, agents and RAG systems. With it retired, those systems need a new source of live web knowledge.

What changed#

Microsoft announced the retirement of the Bing Search APIs, with service ending in August 2025. Existing keys stop working; there is no like-for-like successor from Microsoft aimed at the same developers. That leaves a live gap for anyone who built on Bing Web Search — which is exactly the moment to pick a replacement that fits how you actually use it.

Replacement options for LLM use#

If your goal was "give my model the live web", you broadly have three kinds of replacement:

1. Another SERP API (SerpAPI, Serper) — returns results pages; you still fetch and extract. See vs SerpAPI and vs Serper.
2. An independent search index (Brave Search API) — returns results from its own index. See vs Brave.
3. A retrieval-and-synthesis API (ODEN, Tavily) — returns a distilled answer plus citations, built for models. See vs Tavily.

If you were post-processing Bing results into answers anyway, option 3 removes that whole step.

Bing Web Search vs ODEN#

Migrating from Bing Web Search to ODEN#

The shape is different — ODEN returns an answer, not a results page — so the migration is a small rewrite rather than a swap:

# Before: Bing Web Search returned webPages.value[] of links + snippets,
# which you then fetched and summarised yourself.

# After: ODEN returns the answer and its citations in one call.
import os, requests
r = requests.post(
    "https://api.oden-api.com/search",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['ODEN_KEY']}"},
    json={"query": "your query here"},
    timeout=30,
)
data = r.json()
answer = data["results"]["answer"]
sources = data["results"]["citations"]  # title, url, score

If you specifically need the SERP structure Bing gave you (rankings, ad slots), a SERP API is the closer match — see vs SerpAPI. If you were turning Bing results into answers, ODEN is the shorter path.

FAQ#

When did the Bing Search API shut down?#

Microsoft retired the Bing Search APIs in August 2025. Existing integrations need to migrate to another provider.

Is ODEN a drop-in replacement for Bing Web Search?#

For LLM and agent use, largely yes — but the response is an answer plus citations rather than a results page, so expect a small rewrite. The quickstart shows the new shape.

What if I need the actual search-results page, like Bing returned?#

Use a SERP API such as SerpAPI or Serper for raw results; use ODEN when you want a synthesized answer for a model. See vs SerpAPI.

Is ODEN hosted in the EU?#

Yes — Cloudflare, operated from Sweden — and it checks robots.txt and the EU TDM opt-out at the source. See the EU compliance guide.