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CrawlForge MCP

Alternatives

A search engine built for AI, or 31 MCP tools for everything after the URL. See where each one wins.

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01Quick answer

Exa is a search engine for AI with its own web, people, company and scholarly indexes, priced per request with $10 of free credit a month. CrawlForge is an MCP server with 31 tools for scraping, crawling, browser actions, structured extraction and page monitoring, without a search index of its own. Pick Exa when finding pages is the hard part; pick CrawlForge when working with the pages is.

02Context

Overview

Exa is a search engine for AI. It runs its own web index, plus people, company and scholarly-works indexes, and returns ranked results with page text or highlights in one request. Around search it sells Contents for full page text, Deep Search for multi-step answers, an asynchronous Agent for long-running research, and Monitors that rerun searches on a schedule. Pricing is pay-as-you-go per request, with $10 of free credit every month plus a $10 onboarding bonus.

CrawlForge works from URLs rather than an index. Its 31 MCP tools fetch and clean pages, extract fields against a schema, crawl and map sites, drive a browser for pages that need clicks, and track changes. search_web and deep_research cover search and research, but through an upstream search engine rather than an index CrawlForge owns.

If finding the right pages is the hard part (semantic search, low latency, people or company lookups), Exa is the specialist. If the hard part is what happens once you have the URL, CrawlForge covers more of it.

03Scoreboard

Feature Comparison

02

CrawlForge wins

05

Tie

03

Competitor wins

  1. Search IndexCompetitor wins
    CrawlForge
    None of its own; search_web uses an upstream engine
    Exa
    Own web, people, company and scholarly indexes
  2. Search ModesCompetitor wins
    CrawlForge
    search_web with site, language, time-range and file-type filters
    Exa
    Instant to deep-reasoning, from about 250 ms
  3. Page ContentCompetitor wins
    CrawlForge
    scrape and extract_content (2 credits each)
    Exa
    Contents: $1 per 1,000 pages
  4. Structured ExtractionTie
    CrawlForge
    scrape_structured, extract_structured, extract_with_llm
    Exa
    outputSchema on search results
  5. Browser InteractionCrawlForge wins
    CrawlForge
    scrape_with_actions, browser_session, stealth_mode
    Exa
    Not among its endpoints
  6. Site CrawlingCrawlForge wins
    CrawlForge
    map_site and crawl_deep
    Exa
    Not among its endpoints
  7. ResearchTie
    CrawlForge
    deep_research: fixed 10 credits
    Exa
    Deep Search $12-15 per 1,000; Agent $0.012-$1.00 per run
  8. MonitoringTie
    CrawlForge
    track_changes diffs a page
    Exa
    Monitors rerun a search on a schedule
  9. MCP SupportTie
    CrawlForge
    Native MCP server with 31 tools
    Exa
    MCP server, Claude connector, ChatGPT plugin
  10. Pricing ModelTie
    CrawlForge
    Monthly plans; credits roll over
    Exa
    Pay-as-you-go; $10 free credit monthly

04The numbers

Pricing Comparison

Free

CrawlForge1,000 credits (one-time)

Exa$10 credits/month + $10 onboarding bonus

Hobby

CrawlForge$19/mo — 5,000 credits (roll over)

ExaPay as you go — Search from $4 per 1,000 requests

Professional

CrawlForge$99/mo — 100,000 credits (roll over)

ExaPay as you go — Contents $1 per 1,000 pages

Business

CrawlForge$399/mo — 500,000 credits (roll over)

ExaEnterprise — custom

05Trade-offs

Why Choose CrawlForge

  • Covers what happens after the URL: crawling, browser actions, stealth rendering, schema extraction
  • track_changes compares a specific page against a baseline and reports what changed
  • 31 MCP tools in one server, paid from one credit balance
  • Monthly plans you can budget, with credits that roll over
  • Niche tools such as reddit_search, serp_rank and generate_llms_txt

Where Exa Shines

  • Its own search index, including people, company and scholarly-works indexes
  • Search modes from about 250 ms (instant) up to deep-reasoning
  • Cheap page text: Contents costs $1 per 1,000 pages
  • $10 of free credit every month plus a $10 onboarding bonus, no payment method required
  • Enterprise options: SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA and zero data retention
  • Startup and education grants of up to $1,000 in credits

06Verdict

The Verdict

Pick Exa when the problem is finding things. An index of its own, semantic queries, people and company search, and latency options down to about 250 ms make it a strong retrieval layer for agents, and reading page text through Contents is cheap.

Pick CrawlForge when the problem is what to do with a page. Rendering JavaScript, clicking through to content, returning fields that match a schema, crawling a whole site and diffing a page over time are all separate tools on CrawlForge, available from one MCP server. The two fit together well: Exa to find the URLs, CrawlForge to work with them.

07Decision

Which one should you pick?

Pick CrawlForge when

  • Your agent already has URLs and needs to render, click through or extract from them.
  • You need to crawl or map a whole site.
  • You want to watch specific pages and get a diff when they change.
  • You prefer a monthly plan with rollover credits to per-request billing.
  • You want one MCP server for scraping, extraction and research.

Pick Exa when

  • Search quality and latency are the core of your product.
  • You need people, company or scholarly search.
  • You read page text in bulk and want the lowest per-page price.
  • You want scheduled searches that report new results by webhook.
  • You need SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA or zero data retention on an enterprise contract.

08Migration

Migration example

Swap an Exa search for a CrawlForge search_web call, then read the pages you need with scrape. (Check Exa docs for the latest SDK.)

Before — Exa
# Before: Exafrom exa_py import Exaexa = Exa()result = exa.search(    "recent techniques for improving retrieval in RAG systems",    type="auto",    contents={"highlights": True},)
After — CrawlForge
# After: CrawlForgeimport os, requestsr = requests.post(    "https://www.crawlforge.dev/api/v1/tools/search_web",    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['CRAWLFORGE_API_KEY']}"},    json={"query": "recent techniques for improving retrieval in RAG systems", "limit": 10},)results = r.json()["data"]

09Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

01Does CrawlForge have a search index like Exa?

No. CrawlForge's search_web queries an upstream search engine and deep_research builds on it. Exa runs its own index, which is why it can offer semantic search modes, people and company search, and latency options down to about 250 ms.

02How do costs compare for reading pages?

Exa Contents costs $1 per 1,000 pages. A CrawlForge scrape costs 2 credits, which is about $1.98 per 1,000 pages on the Professional plan ($99 for 100,000 credits) and $7.60 on Hobby. For bulk page text Exa is cheaper; CrawlForge earns its price when a page needs rendering, interaction, schema extraction or other formats from the same fetch.

03How do Exa Monitors differ from track_changes?

Exa Monitors rerun a search on a schedule and send new results to a webhook, which suits news and event tracking. CrawlForge's track_changes takes a baseline of a specific page and reports what changed on it, which suits pricing pages, docs and policies.

04Can I use Exa and CrawlForge together?

Yes. Exa to find relevant URLs, CrawlForge to render, extract from, crawl or monitor them. Both have MCP servers, so one agent can call both. They are billed separately.

05Where can I compare Exa, Tavily, Firecrawl and CrawlForge side by side?

Our blog post "CrawlForge vs Firecrawl vs Tavily vs Exa" (crawlforge.dev/blog/crawlforge-vs-firecrawl-tavily-exa-web-data-api) compares all four web data APIs for AI agents. This page goes deeper on Exa alone.

10Resources

Related resources

01

Getting started

Install CrawlForge MCP and run your first scrape in under a minute.

02

Browse all 31 tools

See every scraping, extraction, and research tool with credit costs.

03

Use cases

Lead enrichment, price monitoring, RAG pipelines, and more.

04

Pricing

Free 1,000 credits, then $19/mo Starter. Compare every plan.

05

All comparisons

See how CrawlForge stacks up against every major scraping API.

06

CrawlForge vs Firecrawl vs Tavily vs Exa: Best Web Data API for AI Agents (2026)

CrawlForge, Firecrawl, Tavily, and Exa compared for AI agents -- what each web data API does, how they price, and how to pick the right one in 2026.

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