Tavily vs Exa
Tavily versus Exa for AI agents — hit@k accuracy, freshness lag, cost per verified-correct answer, and agent-readiness, scored against golden truth.
On the verified web_search-2026-q3 snapshot (n=299 public queries), Exa leads hit@5 (80.9% vs 49.4%). Cost, freshness and latency are not yet measured this snapshot.
Head to Head — Web Search
| Metric | Tavily | Exa | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| hit@1 % | 31.4 | 62.2 | Exa |
| hit@5 % | 49.4 | 80.9 | Exa |
| fresh<30d % | — | — | — |
| retrievability h | — | — | — |
| cost/correct $ | — | — | — |
| p50 latency ms | — | — | — |
Head to Head — Web Extraction
| Metric | Tavily | Exa | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| fidelity 0-1 | 0.62 | 0.74 | Exa |
| phrase recall | 0.54 | 0.67 | Exa |
| boilerplate excl. | 0.68 | 0.76 | Exa |
| cost/correct $ | — | $0.0047 | Exa |
| coverage % | 98.7 | 98.7 | tie |
Which Should an Agent Pick?
For accuracy-first agent workloads, compare hit@5 (the only web-search metric measured this snapshot — cost, freshness and latency are pending). Both Tavily and Exa should be evaluated on your own query mix; web_search figures are over a 299-query public split (n=299).
Illustrative prototype. No verified vendor run has been published yet; every figure here is a placeholder and must not be cited as a measured result. Numbers are replaced when a snapshot’s first full run lands.