TL;DR
All of Exa's recall, none of the lock-in to a single retrieval style.
Feature comparison
Honest, side-by-side. We update this quarterly.
exaExa | ||
|---|---|---|
| Clean markdown output (no HTML mess) | ||
| Structured deep search & enrichment | ||
| Multi-engine (Google, Bing, Brave, DDG) | ||
| Social-native search (X, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, HN, LinkedIn) | ||
| Token-compact responses (~70% smaller) | ||
| Source citations with timestamps | ||
| Drop-in OpenAPI / OpenAI tool schema | ||
| Streaming results | ||
| Per-query budget & token limits | ||
| JS-rendered page support | ||
| Free tier | 1,000 / mo | limited |
| Pay-as-you-go pricing |
Clean markdown output (no HTML mess)
Sailor
Exa
Structured deep search & enrichment
Sailor
Exa
Multi-engine (Google, Bing, Brave, DDG)
Sailor
Exa
Social-native search (X, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, HN, LinkedIn)
Sailor
Exa
Token-compact responses (~70% smaller)
Sailor
Exa
Source citations with timestamps
Sailor
Exa
Drop-in OpenAPI / OpenAI tool schema
Sailor
Exa
Streaming results
Sailor
Exa
Per-query budget & token limits
Sailor
Exa
JS-rendered page support
Sailor
Exa
Free tier
Sailor
1,000 / moExa
limitedPay-as-you-go pricing
Sailor
Exa
When to choose Sailor
- You're shipping an AI product where context quality directly drives output quality.
- You want one API for SERPs, page content, and social platforms.
- You care about token cost as much as recall.
- You'd rather migrate later than hit a ceiling now.
When to choose Exa
- Your workload is purely semantic discovery on the web.
- You don't need social, news, or platform-specific search.
- You're already deeply integrated with Exa's content endpoints.
Migrate in under 30 minutes
Same payload shape. Same response keys. Drop in and ship.
await exa.searchAndContents("ai agents", { numResults: 10 })await sailor.search({ q: "ai agents", enrich: true, format: "markdown" })Questions, answered
Still curious? Email us at hello@sailorsearch.dev — we usually reply within hours.
Give your agent the search it deserves.
Start with clean markdown, citations, social context, and structured search in one API call.
By signing up you agree to our terms. We'll never train on your queries.