A pytrends alternative for production agents

A pytrends alternative for production agents is a managed API, not an archived scraper. GeneralMills archived pytrends on 17 April 2025. Trends MCP returns Google Search history on source google search, a live board via get_top_trends with type Google Trends, and the same account over MCP or REST. Connecting is free. Calling is not. Free plan 100 requests per month. Starter $19 for 1,000. Search interest in the library name collapsed. PyPI downloads for the same package rose. Treat that split as the finding, not as a eulogy.

This URL stays the alternative page. There is no third slug in this refresh. The API contract without the archive story is Google Trends API. The MCP query title is MCP for Google Trends. Cursor JSON lives on Trends MCP for Cursor.

Search interest collapsed. PyPI did not.

Google Search interest in pytrends collapsed while PyPI downloads for the same package rose. get_growth pulled 26 August 2026 via Trends MCP, recent_date 2026-08-22 unless noted.

Keyword pytrends, source google search: 30D 19 to 7 (minus 63.16 percent), 3M 84 to 7 (minus 91.67 percent), 12M 68 to 7 (minus 89.71 percent). That is the query people type when they are looking for a library, a gist, or a Stack Overflow thread.

Keyword pytrends, source python (PyPI): 30D 76.4 to 85.2 (plus 11.52 percent), 12M 19.1 to 85.2 (plus 346.07 percent), recent_volume 341991 on 2026-08-17. Installs moved up after the archive date.

A notebook that still pip install pytrends can run for weeks. A CI job that scrapes trends.google.com still fails when markup changes. Search demand falling is a discovery problem. Download volume rising is a hangover. Neither number means the HTML contract is safe to put behind an agent.

Do not paste a same-day Google Trends board here. Boards turn over. This split will still be the useful cite next month: people stopped googling the library name while the package kept shipping.

The managed Google contract pytrends never had

pytrends returned relative 0-100 interest from Google’s public Trends frontend, as pandas, with IP rate limits. Trends MCP is not that client. The keyword series is source google search. The live board is type Google Trends. Mixing those strings is the usual invalid_source.

get_trends (MCP) and REST mode get_time_series return about five years of weekly points where the pipeline has them. get_growth returns percent change for one or more windows in a single request, one billable unit per source plus keyword. get_top_trends needs type. Default limit 25, max 200, offset for the next page.

get_growth(keyword="pytrends", source="google search", percent_growth=["30D", "3M", "12M"])
get_growth(keyword="pytrends", source="python", percent_growth=["30D", "12M"])
get_top_trends(type="Google Trends", limit=25)
get_trends(keyword="air fryer", source="google search")

Volume can be present on some Google Search rows and null on others. Null is not a failed call. Empty history returns not_found or data_unavailable. Scores sit on a 0-100 index when the pipeline supports it. Two keywords at 80 are not equal in absolute searches.

Google’s own Trends API Alpha, announced 24 July 2025, is a third product. Application-gated. Consistently scaled relative interest, not absolute counts. Trends MCP does not proxy that credential. SerpApi is a scrape of Trends pages. None of those three is a drop-in import pytrends.

Cursor talks to api.trendsmcp.ai, not a notebook

Agents do not pip-install a scraper into the editor. Cursor Settings, Tools & MCP, or the user file. Mac and Linux: ~/.cursor/mcp.json. Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.cursor\mcp.json. Under mcpServers:

"trends-mcp": {
  "url": "https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp",
  "transport": "http",
  "headers": {
    "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
  }
}

The key is a tmcp_live_ token from the account page. Fully quit Cursor after saving. The www host is Claude.ai OAuth and will 401 in this file. Ask with “using TrendsMCP” so Agent routes to the tools instead of a web search for pytrends snippets.

REST for jobs that should not wait on an IDE: POST https://api.trendsmcp.ai/api with Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY and mode get_time_series or get_growth. Same source strings. Same monthly cap.

How a weekly keyword list spends the month

Free 100 requests per month. Starter $19 / 1,000. Pro $49 / 5,000. Business $199 / 25,000. Annual 20 percent off. Pricing. Connecting is free. Each get_growth source plus keyword is one request even with three windows in the array. Each get_top_trends page is one request. Paging limit 50 four times is four requests before any history call.

A practical desk list is 30 phrases, get_growth on google search with 3M and 12M, once a week. That is 30 requests. It fits the free plan. Adding tiktok on the keepers doubles those rows. Caching the JSON is how the month survives. A crawl of 10,000 keywords overnight is a different product.

401: missing Bearer header, or the www OAuth URL pasted into Cursor. invalid_source: google trends sent as a keyword source. Low-volume phrases print huge percents on a 1-to-2 index. Quote both values. Do not treat volume estimates as Keyword Planner.

pytrends can stay in a lab notebook. Production agents need a host that still answers after Google ships a frontend change. This page is that replacement URL. The vs-Google-API page covers Alpha, SerpApi, and the archive in a table. This page is the production swap.