Exa vs Linkup
A side-by-side comparison of Exa and Linkup, two Search tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
At a glance
| Attribute | Exa | Linkup |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search | Search |
| Pricing | FREEMIUM | FREEMIUM |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Deployment | Cloud | Cloud |
| Platforms | API | API |
| Model support | Model-agnostic | Model-agnostic |
| Vendor (differs) | Exa Labs | Linkup |
| Capabilities (differs) |
|
|
The honest brief
Exa
Built for AI/research retrieval: neural embedding search plus find-similar, where general search APIs key off keywords.
- Semantic 'find pages like this' retrieval
- Purpose-built for RAG and agents
- Returns full page content, not just links
- Free tier to test
- Index narrower than Google-scale crawlers
- Keyword queries can lag classic search
- Usage-priced costs scale with volume
Linkup
Tops OpenAI's SimpleQA benchmark for grounded answers, with per-request pricing and a multi-step deep-research endpoint.
- Strong SimpleQA benchmark result
- Sourced, cited answers fast
- Fetch + deep-research endpoints
- MCP and SDK integrations
- API-only, no end-user app
- Deep research can cost up to $2.50/call
- Newer entrant vs incumbents
When to pick which
Both cover Cited answers.
Pick Exa if you need Web scraping, Unified search, and Structured extraction.
- Web scraping (secondary capability)
- Unified search (primary capability)
- Structured extraction (secondary capability)
Pick Linkup if you need MCP server and Web research agent.
- MCP server (secondary capability)
- Web research agent (primary capability)
Linkup leans on Cited answers as a headline capability; Exa treats it as secondary.
- Cited answers (primary capability)