Exa vs Valyu
A side-by-side comparison of Exa and Valyu, two Search tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
At a glance
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
Valyu
Returns structured, extracted content from licensed paywalled papers, filings and patents — not just links most search APIs stop at.
- Searches proprietary and paywalled sources
- Full extracted content, ready for RAG
- Deep research API for multi-step tasks
- Flat per-task pricing
- No free tier
- Early-stage company
- Developer / API-only
- Premium data sources cost more