Semantic Scholar
Open academic graph and API used across research tooling.
Full Semantic Scholar record →Head to head
Semantic Scholar vs Exa
Semantic Scholar (Allen Institute for AI) and Exa (Exa) both sit in Search & Research. Semantic Scholar is the cheaper entry point at Free, open API. Exa shipped more tracked changes in the last 30 days (1 vs 0). Every value below comes from the latest crawl of the vendors' own pages.
| Attribute | Semantic Scholar Allen Institute for AI | Exa Exa |
|---|---|---|
| Segment | Search & Research | Search & Research |
| Version | 2025 | 3.0 |
| Entry cost | Free, open API | Free tier · from $1,000/mo |
| Pricing tiers | — | Starter free · Developer free · Enterprise $1000 |
| Model stack | SPECTER embeddings | agentic models · embedding · Exa 3.0 · Exa Agent API · Exa Auto · Exa Custom Search Models · Exa Deep · Exa Instant · Exa neural search models · Exa Search · Exa Search API · Exa Search Embedding Model · Exa Search Model · Exa Search Models · Exa Search Neural Model · neural search model |
| Context window | — | n/a |
| Public API | ||
| Routes models | ||
| Changes / 30d | 0 | 1 |
| Origin | Global | Global |
| Capabilities | 200M+ papers, Citation contexts, Open API | Neural search, Contents retrieval, Websets, Answer endpoint, Research API, Web Search API, Deep Research, Structured JSON Extraction |
Exa
Embeddings-based web search designed to feed retrieval pipelines and agents.
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