Exa vs SKI
Exa and SKI are both AI assistants tools. Exa is aimed at developers and enterprise, while SKI is aimed at developers and freelancers. Both have a free plan.
Web search and content API built for AI agents and LLM apps
Voice-first Mac harness for running several coding agents at once
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium · $20 |
| Starting price | Not published | $20/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers, Enterprise, Small businesses | Developers, Freelancers, Small businesses |
| Platforms | web | macos |
| Country | US · 2021 | IN |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Exa if
Developers and AI teams who need a fast, controllable web search and content layer for agents, RAG or research products.
- Free $10 monthly credit grant with no card required
- Lite search at $4 per 1,000 requests suits high-volume agents
- Highlights cut token usage and LLM costs compared with full pages
Look elsewhere if: Non-technical users who want a finished answer engine or chat app rather than an API (Perplexity, You.com).
Choose SKI if
Mac developers who already run Claude Code, Codex or Cursor and want to manage several agents by voice.
- Uses the agent subscriptions you already have instead of reselling models
- Free plan includes the full harness with two concurrent sessions
- Projects, code and chats stay on your Mac
Look elsewhere if: Developers who want a single AI editor with built-in models and no extra layer (Cursor).
Exa vs SKI pricing
Exa
- Free$0$10 in credits every month plus a one-time $10 onboarding bonus
- Search Lite$4/1,000 requestsUp to 10 results per request; $1 per 1k extra results
- Search Auto$7/1,000 requestsUp to 10 results per request; AI summaries $1 per 1k pages
- Deep Search$12/1,000 requestsdeep-lite (about 4 seconds) and deep (4 to 15 seconds) types
- Contents$1/1,000 pagesPer content type; prepaid credits, no subscription or minimum
SKI
- Free$0/mo2 concurrent sessions, 300 credits/mo, full harness on your Mac
- Pro$20/mo12 concurrent sessions, 2,000 credits/mo
- EnterpriseCustomBetter rates for teams; contact sales
Exa · Key features
- Search API with lite, auto, deep-lite and deep types on one independent index
- Dynamic Highlights that pass only the most relevant tokens to the model
- Contents API for full page text, highlights and AI summaries
- Agent API for cited research, list building and enrichment with structured output
- Coverage of people, companies, code, papers, ecommerce listings and local businesses
- Monitors for recurring searches and Websets for verified datasets
Cons
- No flat monthly plan, so spend rises directly with traffic
- Websets API needs a separate paid Websets plan and credits
- Benchmark leadership is reported by Exa itself
SKI · Key features
- Spoken instructions and spoken status updates for coding agents
- Runs Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Antigravity and pi side by side
- Alerts you when an agent is waiting for input
- SKI Hub tracks projects, branches and chats across agents
- Separate git branch and worktree per chat with live diffs
- Agent chains, for example one agent plans and another builds
Cons
- macOS only; Windows and Linux are on a waiting list
- Voice is processed in the cloud, so it needs a connection
- Credit cost per action is shown only inside the app
Exa vs SKI: FAQ
Do Exa and SKI have a free plan?
Yes, both Exa and SKI have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.