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Exa vs Firecrawl. Rows marked Differs have different values.

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Exa

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Firecrawl

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TypeStartupStartup
CategoriesDiffers
In one lineSearch API purpose-built for AI agents.Turn websites into clean, LLM-ready markdown.
Stage & funding——
GitHub stars——
License——
Language——
Last push——
Works with——
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People linkedDiffers23
Events00
Pros
  • User reportsRuns its own large, independent web index (confirmed on HN by Exa's head of index) rather than reselling Google or Bing.[1]
  • User reportsIn one user's side-by-side test, LLMs preferred Exa and Tavily results over Brave and SearXNG.[1]
  • User reportsBuilt into agent tools: OpenCode supports Exa search by default, and Exa is available as a Codex plugin.[1][2]
  • DocsThe free Starter plan gives $10 of credits a month plus a $10 onboarding bonus, with no payment method needed.[1]
  • MetadataVery popular (about 197k GitHub stars) and actively maintained, with a core you can self-host.[1]
  • User reportsTurns pages into clean, LLM-ready Markdown; builders use it in production scraping pipelines and recommend it alongside Exa.[1][2]
  • User reportsSelf-hosting works well for one agent user who does not need the cloud-only features.[1]
  • DocsThe free plan gives 1,000 credits a month with no card, and Hobby is $16/month billed yearly for 5,000 credits.[1]
Cons
  • DocsPricier than some rivals: search starts at $4 per 1,000 requests (users quoted $7 per 1,000 plus a charge per result beyond the top 10), against $0.25-5 elsewhere.[1][2][3]
  • DocsContents cost $1 per 1,000 pages for each content type, so asking for text, highlights and summaries multiplies the cost.[1]
  • DocsZero data retention and HIPAA are Enterprise-only, which one user described as Exa charging for no retention.[1][2]
  • DocsThroughput is capped at 10 search QPS on the free plan and 25 on Developer; higher QPS and SLAs are Enterprise-only.[1]
  • DocsAGPL-3.0, and the default self-hosted stack has no Fire-engine anti-bot, no screenshots, no page actions and no Agent or Browser features. Its quickstart turns API auth off and has no high availability.[1][2]
  • DocsUnused credits roll over only on Scale and Enterprise, and the JSON, Question and Highlight formats add 4 credits per page.[1]
  • User reportsSite operators complain about its traffic: one said Firecrawl customers caused 95% of their bandwidth overage and that it is not a 'verified bot'.[1]
  • User reportsA competitor says it often struggles with heavy SPAs and hardened anti-bot walls such as Turnstile and DataDome.[1]
  • User reportsA privacy-focused user lists Firecrawl among the providers that keep request logs.[1]
Best forAgents that need high-quality semantic web search from an independent index.Agents and RAG pipelines that need web pages as clean Markdown at moderate volume.
Watch out forModel your costs per request and per content type, and get zero retention in writing if your queries are sensitive.Expect blocks on protected sites, and check the AGPL terms before you embed it.
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