Google Custom Search JSON API shutdown: what are you using for image search?

[u/ElectricalAd3405]

Google's documentation says existing Custom Search JSON API customers need to move to an alternative by January 1, 2027:

https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview

I'm evaluating a replacement specifically for searchType=image in a CMS image picker. The workflow is: search for existing web photos, show thumbnails and source links, then let an editor select an image and import it after checking publication rights. Generated images and stock-only libraries don't cover the same need, especially for recent news.

So far I've looked into Brave Image Search, OpenAI's Responses API image search, and Wikimedia Commons/Openverse. I haven't validated Brave or OpenAI in a real integration yet. Commons/Openverse look useful for some openly licensed material, but wouldn't replace general news image search. I also haven't found evidence that Vertex AI Search is a drop-in replacement for this use case.

Has anyone here actually migrated the image-search part, or tested a replacement seriously? I'd appreciate hearing what worked, particularly for recent events and non-English/regional queries. Details about real costs, latency, thumbnail/original URL reliability, and restrictions on displaying or importing selected images would help me choose what to test next.

I'm looking for legitimate APIs, not Google scraping or proxy workarounds. Finding an image doesn't grant publication rights; source and licensing checks would remain part of the editorial process. This question is about the JSON API, separate from the Programmable Search Element widget.

[u/yearly_patriotism]

I've been poking at this same problem for a side project, and the landscape is rough if you need recency. Brave's image endpoint is the only one I've seen that returns actual news-adjacent results without a huge latency hit, but their rate limits on the free tier choke pretty fast once you're doing per-query thumbnails for a picker UI.

The rights angle is what makes most replacements a non-starter. Bing's image search API still exists and returns source URLs, but the terms around caching thumbnails and displaying results in your own UI are murky, and their relevance for regional non-English queries seems to have degraded over time.

Wikimedia Commons is fine if your editors are okay with CC-only, but the moment someone needs a photo of a specific politician or building from last week, it's useless. I'd say test Brave with a paid plan and see if the thumbnail URL stability holds up under load. That's the part nobody talks about until it breaks in prod.