Exa vs Tavily: Which Search API Makes More Sense for AI Apps?

I’ve been looking into search APIs for AI apps, and one thing I noticed is that Exa and Tavily approach search a bit differently.

• Tavily feels more focused on getting useful web results quickly for AI agents and RAG.
• Exa is interesting when you need semantic search and want results based more on meaning than exact keywords.
• For simple web search, either can work, but the better choice really depends on what your application needs.

One thing I’d recommend is testing both with the same 20–50 queries and comparing relevance, response time, and how much cleanup the returned content needs.

For anyone who has actually benchmarked them, what differences did you notice in real projects?