Both are commercial web grounding options with comparable terms, so the choice comes down to which model of the problem you prefer — compare the descriptions below rather than the licence.
Embeddings-native web search built for agents, with full-content retrieval.
Search API that returns model-ready answers rather than ten blue links.
| Exa | Tavily | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Pricing | freemium | freemium |
| Self-hostable | No | No |
| Languages | Python, TypeScript | Python, TypeScript |
| Install | npm install exa-js | — |
| Keys required | EXA_API_KEY | TAVILY_API_KEY |
Both are commercial web grounding options with comparable terms, so the choice comes down to which model of the problem you prefer — compare the descriptions below rather than the licence. Exa: Embeddings-native web search built for agents, with full-content retrieval. Tavily: Search API that returns model-ready answers rather than ten blue links.
Exa is a hosted service only. Tavily is a hosted service only.
Exa is proprietary (freemium). Tavily is proprietary (freemium).
Every page here answers to Accept: text/markdown and returns the same content at roughly a tenth the tokens. No separate site, no toggle — same URL.
curl -s -H "Accept: text/markdown" https://newagent.build/compare/exa-vs-tavily