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Exa vs Linkup

Exa scores higher on the AgentReady, 92/100 against 67/100. They differ on 12 of the 41 signals. Which ones decides whether an agent can adopt them without a person watching.

What each one is

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

Linkup. Web Search API for AI with industry-leading accuracy, providing web search built for AI applications via one API call or deployed inside your own cloud.

Where Exa is ahead

Exa passes structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented and limits / constraints documented, and Linkup does not. That is understand, whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it.

It also holds adopt: programmatic credential creation. Linkup misses it.

And on operate, machine-readable errors, rate-limit behavior predictable and agent compatibility verified. Linkup misses those.

Where Linkup is ahead

Linkup passes no mandatory sales call and agent-compatible signup flow, and Exa does not. That is adopt, whether an agent can get a key and make its first successful call without a human in the loop.

What neither does

Both fail 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.

Understand is whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it. Exa leads 100 to 31. Exa misses nothing; Linkup misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented.

Adopt. Linkup leads 90 to 81. Exa misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow; Linkup misses programmatic credential creation.

Operate. Exa leads 88 to 47. Exa misses retry behavior documented, idempotency support; Linkup misses machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, agent compatibility verified.

Pricing

Exa starts at $0 (free tier with credits) and has a free tier. Linkup starts at $0.001 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: Exa and Linkup. Alternatives to each: Exa, Linkup.

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