# Exa API + MCP vs Firecrawl MCP

> Firecrawl MCP has a score of 75.5 (BB) against Exa API + MCP's 66.1 (B). Both do web search. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 40 points. Exa API + MCP accepts x402. Firecrawl MCP doesn't. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-firecrawl-mcp
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-firecrawl-mcp.md (~2,000 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-firecrawl-mcp.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exa-mcp-vs-firecrawl-mcp.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

Firecrawl MCP has a score of 75.5 (BB) against Exa API + MCP's 66.1 (B). Both do web search. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 40 points. Exa API + MCP accepts x402. Firecrawl MCP doesn't.

- Exa API + MCP: grade B, 66.1/100, rank #163 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/exa-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/exa-mcp.json
- Firecrawl MCP: grade BB, 75.5/100, rank #34 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/firecrawl-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/firecrawl-mcp.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Exa API + MCP for payments & pricing (+40).

Pick Firecrawl MCP for security & auth (+24), transparency & trust (+11).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Exa API + MCP | Firecrawl MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 67 | 70 | Firecrawl MCP +3 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 86 | 88 | Firecrawl MCP +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 96 | 92 | Exa API + MCP +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 43 | 67 | Firecrawl MCP +24 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 90 | 50 | Exa API + MCP +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 88 | 87 | Exa API + MCP +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 76 | Firecrawl MCP +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -9 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.1 · B** | **75.5 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Exa API + MCP | Firecrawl MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | MCP server |
| Vendor | Exa | Firecrawl (Mendable) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp` | `https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP, HTTP | stdio, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy) |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | yes, from $0.007/call | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 4 | 26 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `ai.exa/exa` | `io.github.firecrawl/firecrawl-mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-01 |
| Popularity | 4.9k stars, 1.1M npm/wk, 1.4M PyPI/wk | 7.5k stars, 29k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4.5/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

**Exa API + MCP.** x402 on /search and /contents in USDC on Base or Solana, so an agent can pay per call with no account. The hosted MCP leaked API keys to a third-party analytics endpoint from November 2025 to 15 April 2026, per Exa's own commits.

**Firecrawl MCP.** Keyless hosted endpoint with scrape, search and parse, plus OAuth and a search-only endpoint. No x402 or other machine payment.

## Before you call either

### Exa API + MCP

1. Send the key as `x-api-key` or a Bearer header, never `?exaApiKey=` in the MCP URL
2. Ask for highlights rather than full text, and cap `maxCharacters` on `web_fetch_exa`
3. Request only the results you'll read. More than 10 costs extra, and x402 calls stop at 10
4. On 429, honour `Retry-After`. The QPS limit is shared by every key on the team
5. Add `?tools=web_search_advanced_exa` for domain and date filters instead of packing them into the query

### Firecrawl MCP

1. Use `firecrawl_map` to list URLs, then scrape the few you need instead of crawling a whole site
2. On the keyless endpoint only scrape, search and parse work. A 429 carries a `signup_url` for the human
3. Ask for markdown only. JSON, question and highlight formats add 4 credits a page
4. Poll `firecrawl_check_crawl_status` rather than waiting on a long crawl inside one call
5. Check the URL before scraping. Dead pages still cost a credit

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