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Exa vs Valyu

Exa scores higher on the AgentReady, 92/100 against 62/100. 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.

Valyu. Search and deep research API for AIs doing knowledge work.

Where Exa is ahead

Exa passes structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided and errors and status codes documented, and Valyu 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. Valyu misses it.

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

Where Valyu is ahead

Valyu passes no mandatory sales call, 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 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.

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; Valyu misses structured api reference, openapi / spec quality, authentication documented, request examples provided, response examples provided, errors and status codes documented.

Adopt. Exa leads 81 to 80. Exa misses no mandatory sales call, agent-compatible signup flow; Valyu misses agent-compatible signup flow, programmatic credential creation.

Operate. Exa leads 88 to 35. Exa misses retry behavior documented, idempotency support; Valyu misses machine-readable errors, retry behavior documented, idempotency support, rate-limit behavior predictable, observable execution, agent compatibility verified.

Pricing

Exa starts at $0 (free tier with credits) and has a free tier. Valyu starts at $29/mo 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 Valyu. Alternatives to each: Exa, Valyu.

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