Exa vs Together AI
Exa scores higher on the AgentReady, 92/100 against 46/100. 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
Exa. Exa is a custom search engine built for AIs, offering an API to search the largest index of public web and private information.
Together AI. Full-stack AI platform, powered by cutting-edge research
Where Exa is ahead
Exa passes search discoverable, clear product positioning and mcp discoverable, and Together AI does not. That is discover, whether an agent can find the product at all without being told it exists.
It also holds understand: openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented and limits / constraints documented. Together AI misses those.
And on adopt, programmatic credential creation, cli available and mcp integration available. Together AI misses those.
Finally, on operate, structured, predictable output, machine-readable errors, rate-limit behavior predictable and agent compatibility verified. Together AI 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 60. Exa misses nothing; Together AI misses search discoverable, clear product positioning, mcp discoverable.
Understand is whether an agent can read the docs and work out how the API behaves before calling it. Exa leads 100 to 38. Exa misses nothing; Together AI misses openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented, limits / constraints documented.
Adopt. Exa leads 81 to 52. Exa misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow; Together AI misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation, cli available, mcp integration available.
Operate. Exa leads 88 to 35. Exa misses retry behavior documented, idempotency support; Together AI misses structured, predictable output, 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. Together AI starts at $0.00 and has a free tier.
| Exa plans | Together AI plans |
|---|---|
| - | Serverless Inference Usage-based per 1M tokens |
| - | Provisioned Throughput Custom |
| - | Dedicated Inference Custom |
| - | GPU Clusters Custom |
| - | Sandbox Custom |
| - | Managed Storage Custom |
| - | Fine-Tuning Custom |
Signal by signal
| Signal | Exa | Together AI |
|---|---|---|
| AgentReady | 92 | 46 |
| Discovery | 100 | 60 |
| Understanding | 100 | 38 |
| Adoption | 81 | 52 |
| Operability | 88 | 35 |
| Public API | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | No |
| OpenAPI spec | Yes | Yes |
| CLI | Yes | Unknown |
| llms.txt | Yes | Yes |
| Self-serve signup | Yes | Yes |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
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 Together AI. Alternatives to each: Exa, Together AI.
An agent can fetch this as data: POST /v1/compare {"slugs": ["exa", "together"]}