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AI search APIs are the infrastructure layer that gives large language models access to current web information. Unlike traditional search engines, these APIs return semantically relevant, structured results optimized for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and AI agent workflows. They are used by AI products that need to answer questions about the real world beyond their training data.
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Frequently asked questions
How much does Tavily cost?
Tavily is freemium. The free Research plan includes 1,000 API credits per month with no card required, which covers 1,000 basic searches at 1 credit each or 500 advanced searches at 2 credits each. Past that you can pay as you go per credit, and paid monthly plans scale up to around $500 for 100,000 credits. Unused credits do not roll over to the next month, so size your plan to actual usage.
Is Tavily open source?
No. Tavily is a closed-source hosted API. The company publishes open-source client SDKs and framework integrations, and its Python and JavaScript libraries see more than 3M monthly downloads, but the search index and backend stay proprietary. You cannot self-host the search engine on your own infrastructure. You reach it only through Tavily's hosted endpoints with an API key.
Does Tavily render JavaScript like a browser scraper?
No. Tavily is a search API for AI agents and RAG pipelines, not a headless-browser scraper. You send a query and get back ranked results with snippets, optional extracted page content, and an optional generated answer for grounding. For JavaScript-heavy single-page apps that need a real browser to render, pair it with a dedicated scraping tool, or point Tavily's Extract endpoint at the specific URLs you want.
Who owns Tavily after the Nebius acquisition?
In February 2026 Nebius Group agreed to acquire Tavily in a deal that could reach about $400M depending on performance milestones. Nebius is folding Tavily's agentic search into its AI cloud platform. For buyers the practical question is long-term independence and pricing direction. When a cloud provider owns your search API, expect roadmap and packaging decisions to track the parent's platform strategy.
What is the best alternative to Tavily?
Exa is the closest direct alternative. It is built around embeddings-based neural search and suits semantic, meaning-based retrieval rather than keyword matching. Linkup is another agent-focused search API worth testing on answer quality and price. Serper.dev is the cheaper choice if you mainly need raw Google SERP data instead of agent-ready answers. Pick Exa when retrieval relevance for RAG matters most. Pick Serper.dev when you want low-cost SERP access.
How does Tavily compare to Exa?
Both target AI agents and RAG, but the retrieval model differs. Tavily runs keyword and web search tuned for agents, returning snippets and an optional synthesized answer, and it is the default in the LangChain and LlamaIndex ecosystems. Exa leans on neural, embeddings-based search for semantic relevance. Tavily tends to be simpler to drop into existing agent frameworks, while Exa can surface more conceptually related results. Test both on your own queries, since relevance varies by use case.
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