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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

Exa API + MCP vs You.com APIs

You.com APIs has a score of 76.9 (BB) against Exa API + MCP's 66.1 (B). Both do web search. The largest gap is reliability, 18 points. Exa API + MCP accepts x402. You.com APIs doesn't.

Exa API + MCPExa · MCP server B66.1/100#163 of 452 You.com APIsYou.com · HTTP API BB76.9/100#24 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Exa API + MCP for

  • agent ergonomics (+12)
  • maintenance & community (+6)

Pick You.com APIs for

  • reliability (+18)
  • security & auth (+10)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runExa API + MCPYou.com APIsEdge
Reliability16%206785You.com APIs +18
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28682Exa API + MCP +4
Agent ergonomics13%16.29684Exa API + MCP +12
Security & auth14%17.54353You.com APIs +10
Payments & pricing10%12.59088Exa API + MCP +2
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88882Exa API + MCP +6
Transparency & trust7%8.86563Exa API + MCP +2
Negative events≤15-90
Total66.1 · B76.9 · BB

Facts side by side

FactExa API + MCPYou.com APIs
KindMCP serverHTTP API
VendorExaYou.com
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.exa.ai/mcphttps://api.you.com/v1/search
Transportsstdio, Streamable HTTP, HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402yes, from $0.007/callpayer tooling only
LicenceMITnone
Tools exposed46
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentedyesno
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryai.exa/exaio.github.youdotcom-oss/mcp
Last release2026-10-012026-09-22
Popularity4.9k stars, 1.1M npm/wk, 1.4M PyPI/wk4.4k npm/wk, 92k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews4.5/5 (2)3.8/5 (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.

You.com APIs

x402 and MPP on Web Search and Finance Research, with no account needed. Two API hosts. Answer and Research return 'Missing Authentication Token' on ydc-index.io.

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

You.com APIs

  1. For unattended runs call GET https://api.you.com/v1/search, handle the 402 and pay with x402. It's half the MPP price for search
  2. Use https://api.you.com/mcp?profile=free to try search with no key (100 queries a day)
  3. Send Answer, Research and Finance Research to api.you.com. On ydc-index.io they fail with 'Missing Authentication Token'
  4. Pass ?tools= with only the tools you need to keep the MCP tool list short
  5. On 429, wait for Retry-After and watch X-RateLimit-Remaining before the next burst

Other comparisons with Exa API + MCP or You.com APIs

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