Compare

DSPy vs Exa

Exa scores higher on the AgentReady, 92/100 against 47/100. They differ on 16 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

DSPy. DSPy is a Python framework for building AI systems.

Exa. Exa is a custom search engine built for AIs, offering an API to search the largest index of public web and private information.

Where Exa is ahead

Exa passes public docs discoverable and llms-full.txt / full agent docs, and DSPy does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.

It also holds understand: structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented and limits / constraints documented. DSPy misses those.

And on adopt, programmatic credential creation and official typescript sdk. DSPy misses those.

Finally, on operate, structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, rate-limit behavior predictable, observable execution and agent compatibility verified. DSPy misses those.

What neither does

Both fail no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, retry behavior documented, idempotency support. If your agent needs any of those, you will be building it yourself either way.

Score, pillar by pillar

The AgentReady splits into four pillars, scored separately, because a product can be easy to find and still impossible to adopt.

Discover. Exa leads 100 to 80. DSPy misses public docs discoverable, llms-full.txt / full agent docs; Exa misses nothing.

Understand is whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it. Exa leads 100 to 23. DSPy misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented; Exa misses nothing.

Adopt. Exa leads 81 to 60. DSPy misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, official typescript sdk; Exa misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow.

Operate. Exa leads 88 to 24. DSPy misses structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, observable execution, agent compatibility verified; Exa misses retry behavior documented, idempotency support.

Pricing

DSPy does not publish a machine-readable starting price and has a free tier. Exa starts at $0 (free tier with credits) and has a free tier.

Signal by signal

Which to pick

Exa clears more of the signals an agent needs, so it is the safer default for unattended use. Full profiles: DSPy and Exa. Alternatives to each: DSPy, Exa.

An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["dspy", "exa"]}