Amazon Bedrock Web Search launched in August 2026, and it changes a claim that used to be simple to make: that most AI products search the web through someone else's rented index. Amazon built and launched its own — described as spanning tens of billions of documents, refreshed continually — which puts it in the same small company as Google and Brave. The honest version of the ownership argument going forward is that most AI products still rent theirs, not that everyone does.
What each one is
Amazon Bedrock Web Search is a web search capability built into Bedrock, Amazon's generative AI platform, running on a web index Amazon operates itself rather than licensing from a third party. It's built to plug into agents and applications already running on Bedrock. As of this writing, AWS has not published a per-query rate for it.
askFinz also runs its own crawled web index — separately built, separately operated — and puts a Search workspace, browser extension and research agents directly on top of it, returning the matched passage and an answer together at three flat, published rates: $0.75 as a top-up, $1.00 with the extension, $3.50 standalone (see pricing).
Side-by-side
| Dimension | Amazon Bedrock Web Search | askFinz |
|---|---|---|
| Access | Web search built into the Bedrock platform | Search workspace, extension, and agents |
| Index | Amazon's own, launched August 2026 | Its own, crawled and read continuously |
| Pricing | Not yet publicly rated per query | $0.75 top-up · $1.00 with the extension · $3.50 standalone |
| Platform tie | Built for agents and applications already on Bedrock | Standalone workspace, extension, and agents |
| Freshness | Described as refreshed continually | Continuous reading, not a scheduled rebuild |
| Content structure | Not publicly detailed | Filed as what it is — a filing, a standard, a listing |
AWS has not published a per-query rate for Bedrock Web Search as of this writing — nothing here is estimated or inferred in its place. askFinz rates are as published on pricing.
What Bedrock Web Search does well
Amazon building its own index rather than licensing one is a genuinely significant move — it's real infrastructure investment at a scale few companies attempt, and it means Bedrock customers get web search from an owner rather than a relay, without leaving the AWS ecosystem they're likely already building on. For a team already committed to Bedrock, having web search backed by Amazon's own index and not a third-party API is a real advantage of staying on the platform.
Where the work diverges
The two products are close in one specific respect and far apart in most others: both read and hold an index rather than renting one, but Bedrock Web Search is a feature of a much larger cloud platform, priced and scoped however Amazon eventually decides to price it, while askFinz is a standalone product built specifically around search, its extension, and research agents on top. Without a published rate, there's nothing yet to compare on price — the honest comparison today is architecture and product shape, not cost.
Looking for a Bedrock Web Search alternative?
If you're already building on Bedrock and want web search that stays inside AWS's ecosystem, Amazon's own index is a real, credible option now that it exists. If you want a standalone search workspace with the passage and the answer together, at a flat, published rate, askFinz is worth a look, inside Search and the workspaces built on it.
Which should you choose?
If your stack already runs on Bedrock and staying inside AWS matters, Bedrock Web Search is a legitimate, newly credible option. If you want a flat, known rate and a workspace built specifically around search today, askFinz is the better fit.
See how the index works or read the fuller case for owning an index.
Join the beta to try it against a real question.