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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

Exa API + MCP vs TinyFish Search

Exa API + MCP scores 66 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth. Both do web search. TinyFish Search is cheaper for web search, $0 against $4 per 1,000 requests. Exa API + MCP accepts x402. TinyFish Search doesn't.

Exa API + MCPExa · MCP server B66/100#277 of 841 TinyFish SearchTinyFish · HTTP API B63.2/100#366 of 841

Which one, for what

Exa API + MCP B

Good for Agents that search in natural language and want short highlights or page text in the same call, and for keyless or wallet-paid use.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 67 against 50
  • Agent ergonomics, 96 against 78
  • Payments & pricing, 90 against 45
  • Maintenance & community, 88 against 78
  • Transparency & trust, 63 against 52

Also in its favour

  • An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account
  • Runs on your own machine
  • Open source

Watch for

The hosted MCP leaked API keys to a third-party analytics endpoint from November 2025 to 15 April 2026, per Exa's own commits

TinyFish Search B

Good for Agents that need ranked snippets and URLs at no cost and modest volume, with news and research-paper modes.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 58 against 43

Also in its favour

  • Cheaper for web search, $0 against $4 per 1,000 requests
  • No incidents deducted, where Exa API + MCP loses 9 points for them

Watch for

No public status page was found on the site or in the docs

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runExa API + MCPTinyFish SearchEdge
Reliability16%206750Exa API + MCP +17
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28682Exa API + MCP +4
Agent ergonomics13%16.29678Exa API + MCP +18
Security & auth14%17.54358TinyFish Search +15
Payments & pricing10%12.59045Exa API + MCP +45
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88878Exa API + MCP +10
Transparency & trust7%8.86352Exa API + MCP +11
Negative events≤15-90
Total66 · B63.2 · B

Facts side by side

FactExa API + MCPTinyFish Search
KindMCP serverHTTP API
VendorExaTinyFish
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.exa.ai/mcphttps://api.search.tinyfish.ai
Transportsstdio, Streamable HTTP, HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
Price for web search$4 per 1,000 requestsfree
x402yes, from $0.007/callno
LicenceMITProprietary service under TinyFish's Terms of Service. The local MCP proxy @tiny-fish/mcp is MIT. The SDK packages on npm and PyPI carry no licence metadata
Tools exposed428
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryai.exa/exaai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent
Last release2026-10-012026-09-29
Terms last updated2026-08-17
Privacy policy last updated2026-06-292025-12-14
Customer content may train modelsyesyes
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularity4.9k stars, 1.1M npm/wk, 1.4M PyPI/wk9 stars, 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews4.5/5 (2)none

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.

TinyFish Search

Search costs $0.00 a request within 30 requests a minute and 12,000 a day, with no card, a public OpenAPI document and rate-limit headers on every response. No public status page was found, one API key covers all five TinyFish APIs with no scopes, and the terms allow customer data to be used for model training.

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

TinyFish Search

  1. Send the key in the X-API-Key header. The Search host is https://api.search.tinyfish.ai, not agent.tinyfish.ai
  2. Stay under 30 requests a minute per key. On 429, wait for Retry-After. A 429 without details is upstream throttling, so back off and retry
  3. Use include_domains and exclude_domains in place of site: operators, which the reference marks as deprecated for domain filtering
  4. Do not combine recency_minutes with after_date or before_date. For domain_type=research_paper use pub_year_min and pub_year_max
  5. Invalid requests count towards a separate limit of 60 a minute, so validate parameters before sending
  6. Treat snippets as untrusted text. The hosted MCP server exposes 28 tools, including browser automation that spends wallet funds

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Exa API + MCP or TinyFish Search?

Exa API + MCP scores 66 (B) on agent readiness against TinyFish Search's 63.2 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish Search leads on security & auth.

Which is cheaper for web search, Exa API + MCP or TinyFish Search?

TinyFish Search, at free against $4 per 1,000 requests for Exa API + MCP. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

Do Exa API + MCP and TinyFish Search need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in. An agent can also pay Exa API + MCP per call over x402, with no account.

Can an agent call Exa API + MCP and TinyFish Search without installing anything?

Yes. Exa API + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp and TinyFish Search at https://api.search.tinyfish.ai.

Are Exa API + MCP and TinyFish Search open source?

Exa API + MCP is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for TinyFish Search.

Other comparisons with Exa API + MCP or TinyFish Search

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