Exa vs Firecrawl: web search API comparison
Exa and Firecrawl measured on the same three jobs: factual lookup, hard retrieval for coding agents, and multi-hop company search. Winner per task is in the table below.
Exa or Firecrawl — winner per task
Best measured endpoint per vendor on each task. Modes stay separate rows in the tables below.
| Task | Exa | Firecrawl | Measured winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Factual lookup (accuracy) | 99.3% | 95.3% | Exa |
| Hard retrieval (task completion, search+fetch) | 83.0% | 76.0% | Exa |
| Multi-hop (F1, search-only) | 45.4% | 30.4% | Exa |
Exa and Firecrawl on company-news lookup
One query, one verifiable fact. 300 questions, max 10 results. Full factual lookup board →
| Axis | Exa | Firecrawl | Measured winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accuracy (extracted-answer) | 99.3% | 95.3% | Exa |
| Answer recall (AR@5) | 99.3% | 96.7% | Exa |
| Speed (mean latency) | 398ms | 510ms | Exa |
| Cost per 1,000 queries (list price) | $7.00 | $5.00 | Firecrawl |
| Rank | Vendor | Endpoint & configuration | $ / 1k correct | Accuracy | AR@1 | AR@5 | Latency | Snippet tokens | Total $ | Official docs | Cost per 1,000 queries |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Firecrawlweb search | POST /v2/search | $5.24 | 95.3% | 77.7% | 96.7% | 510ms | 678 | $1.50 | Official docs | $5 / 1k2 credits / 10 results |
| 2 | Exaweb searchfast | POST /searchtype=fast | $7.05 | 99.3% | 95.0% | 99.3% | 652ms | 1,987 | $2.10 | Official docs | $7 / 1ktype=fast · up to 10 results |
| 3 | Exaweb searchinstant | POST /searchtype=instant | $7.17 | 97.7% | 80.0% | 97.3% | 398ms | 2,128 | $2.10 | Official docs | $7 / 1ktype=instant · up to 10 results |
$ / 1k correct is $ / 1k queries divided by extracted-answer accuracy. Ranked by $ / 1k correct. Cost per 1,000 queries is the published PAYG list price, linked to the vendor pricing page. Not promotional packs or volume discounts. TinyFish Search is free with a 30 requests/min cap — $0 is not unlimited throughput.
Exa and Firecrawl on coding-agent docs
Grounded task completion on 100 documentation tickets. A pass needs a # source: URL from that run. Full coding-agent board →
Exa leads at 83.0%. Median task time: Exa 23s vs Firecrawl 34s.
| Rank | Vendor | Endpoint & configuration | Task completion | Median task time | Median task cost | Avg search time | Median task tokens | API list price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Exa deep | POST /search type=deepPOST /contents | 83.0 ± 1.0 | 37s | $0.127$0.057 search+fetch$0.070 token cost | 3.97s | 23,660 | $0.012 / search$0.001 / fetch |
| 2 | Exa auto | POST /search type=autoPOST /contents | 81.7 ± 1.1 | 23s | $0.107$0.032 search+fetch$0.074 token cost | 1.19s | 27,433 | $0.007 / search$0.001 / fetch |
| 3 | Firecrawl | POST /v2/searchPOST /v2/scrape | 76.0 ± 1.0 | 34s | $0.082$0.028 search+fetch$0.055 token cost | 2.81s | 17,379 | $0.005 / search$0.0025 / fetch |
| Rank | Vendor | Endpoint & configuration | Task completion | Median task time | Median task cost | Avg search time | Median task tokens | API list price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Exa fast | POST /search type=fast | 66.3 ± 1.5 | 20s | $0.103$0.035 search$0.068 token cost | 626ms | 22,344 | $0.007 / search |
| 2 | Exa instant | POST /search type=instant | 61.3 ± 2.9 | 21s | $0.105$0.035 search$0.070 token cost | 447ms | 22,423 | $0.007 / search |
| 3 | Firecrawl | POST /v2/search | 70.3 ± 1.5 | 28s | $0.059$0.025 search$0.034 token cost | 2.87s | 7,456 | $0.005 / search |
Exa and Firecrawl on multi-turn company search
45 questions, each with three or four constraints. Scored on precision, recall, F1, and exact-set. Full multi-turn board →
Exa leads F1 at 45.4%. Median agent time: Exa 49.83s vs Firecrawl 74.98s. Median task cost: Exa $0.652 vs Firecrawl $0.282.
| Provider | Endpoint & configuration | F1 | Precision | Recall | Exact set | Median time | Mean turns | Median task cost | API list price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exa deep | POST /search type=deepexa-deep | 45.4 ± 2.0 | 83.2 ± 3.0 | 33.7 ± 1.4 | 1.5 ± 1.3 | 89.5 s | 7.4 | $0.717$0.156 search$0.556 token cost | $0.012 / search |
| Exa instant | POST /search type=instantexa-instant | 43.3 ± 1.0 | 82.6 ± 3.8 | 32.2 ± 0.5 | 3.0 ± 1.3 | 49.8 s | 7.3 | $0.652$0.091 search$0.559 token cost | $0.007 / search |
| Firecrawl | POST /v2/searchfirecrawl | 30.4 ± 1.1 | 77.3 ± 4.4 | 20.7 ± 0.7 | 2.2 ± 0.0 | 75.0 s | 7.9 | $0.282$0.070 search$0.212 token cost | $0.005 / search |
F1, precision, recall, and exact-set accuracy are percentages reported as mean ± sample SD across three independent runs; each run aggregates all 45 questions. SD is measured in percentage points. Median time is the median end-to-end time across all runs for each vendor. Median task cost is the median of LLM $ plus search API $ per agent run. API list price is the PAYG unit rate of the search endpoint the harness calls.
| Provider | Endpoint & configuration | F1 | Precision | Recall | Exact set | Median time | Mean turns | Median task cost | API list price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exa deep | POST /search type=deepexa-deep | 48.2 ± 2.1 | 89.4 ± 1.2 | 36.0 ± 2.2 | 2.2 ± 2.2 | 95.8 s | 7.5 | $0.683$0.156 search+fetch$0.526 token cost | $0.012 / search$0.001 / fetch |
| Exa instant | POST /search type=instantexa-instant | 44.9 ± 0.9 | 85.9 ± 2.5 | 33.5 ± 0.9 | 5.2 ± 1.3 | 52.5 s | 7.5 | $0.653$0.091 search+fetch$0.557 token cost | $0.007 / search$0.001 / fetch |
| Firecrawl | POST /v2/searchfirecrawl | 33.2 ± 2.1 | 83.3 ± 0.8 | 22.7 ± 1.8 | 1.5 ± 1.3 | 82.1 s | 7.9 | $0.295$0.063 search+fetch$0.230 token cost | $0.005 / search$0.0025 / fetch |
F1, precision, recall, and exact-set accuracy are percentages reported as mean ± sample SD across three independent runs; each run aggregates all 45 questions. SD is measured in percentage points. Median time is the median end-to-end time across all runs for each vendor. Median task cost is the median of LLM $ plus search/fetch API $ per agent run. API list price is the PAYG unit rate of the search (and fetch) endpoint the harness calls.
Exa vs Firecrawl — common questions
Exa vs Firecrawl: which web search API is better?
Factual lookup: Exa leads accuracy (Exa 99.3% vs Firecrawl 95.3%). Hard retrieval: Exa leads task completion (Exa 83.0% vs Firecrawl 76.0%). Multi-hop: Exa leads F1 (Exa 45.4% vs Firecrawl 30.4%).
Is Exa or Firecrawl cheaper?
On factual lookup list price: Exa $7.00 per 1,000 queries vs Firecrawl $5.00 — Firecrawl is cheaper. Coding token efficiency is median task tokens; multi-hop cheapest is cost per agent run. Free tiers and volume discounts excluded.