# Exa

> Semantic search and web crawling API designed for AI agents

Exa (formerly Metaphor) is a search engine and crawling API built specifically for LLMs and autonomous agents. Instead of matching keywords, it uses neural embeddings to retrieve relevant web content, parse structured outputs, and extract token-efficient text highlights.

Website: https://exa.ai/

## What it is for

- Discover and enrich prospect lists for sales and marketing outreach
- Provide real-time web retrieval context to autonomous AI agents and coding tools
- Extract clean text and structured data from across the web without manual scraping

## Features

- Neural semantic search across web pages, companies, research, and code
- Token-efficient text highlights extraction to reduce model context costs
- Structured data extraction directly adhering to custom JSON schemas
- Dedicated Contents and Monitors APIs for automated tracking and page reading
- Configurable latency modes from sub-second instant searches to deep research
- Official MCP server and developer integrations for agentic workflows

## Pricing

Freemium. Free tier with credits available to test via API playground; paid usage-based plans.

## Details

- Type: Web app
- Category: [Development](https://xiry.app/topics/development.md)
- Open source: no
- Platforms: API, Web
- For: Developers, AI engineers, and automation agencies building agentic workflows or lead-generation systems.
- Alternative to: Tavily, SerpApi, Brave Search API, Perplexity API
- Tags: search api, web scraping, ai agents, embeddings, data enrichment, lead generation

## Why it was saved

- [@jordanlee__, 21 May 2025](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJ7iN3Egy2t/): Enables searching the web semantically to discover and enrich lead lists such as marketing agencies and accounting firms.
- [@jordanlee__, 5 May 2025](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJSOqs3Ax5u/): Finds targeted B2B prospect lists (such as marketing agencies and accounting firms) using semantic search rather than traditional keywords.

## Compare

- [Alternatives to Tavily](https://xiry.app/alternatives/tavily.md)
- [Alternatives to Brave Search API](https://xiry.app/alternatives/brave-search-api.md)

## Related

- [Parse](https://xiry.app/resources/parse): Turn any website into a structured REST API using natural language (Web app, Freemium)
- [Hyperbrowser](https://xiry.app/resources/hyperbrowser): Cloud browser infrastructure and automation agents designed for AI applications. (Web app, Freemium)
- [Hyperbrowser App Examples](https://xiry.app/resources/hyperbrowser-app-examples): Open-source web apps and AI browser tools built with Hyperbrowser (GitHub repo, Open source)
- [browse.sh](https://xiry.app/resources/browse-sh): Open catalog of browser automation skills and CLI for AI agents (Web app, Freemium)
- [Obscura](https://xiry.app/resources/obscura): Lightweight Rust headless browser for AI agents and web scraping (GitHub repo, Open source)
- [Parallel CLI](https://xiry.app/resources/parallel-cli): Terminal tool giving AI agents web search, extraction, and research capabilities (Web app, Freemium)

Updated 3 October 2026. Page: https://xiry.app/resources/exa

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