Happy Valley

Exa vs Tiden

Exa and Tiden are both developer tools tools. Exa is aimed at developers and enterprise, while Tiden is aimed at developers and small businesses. Only Exa has a free plan.

Exa

Web search and content API built for AI agents and LLM apps

Tiden

Checks that AI coding agents build what you asked, with tests as proof

PricingFreemiumPaid · $49
Starting priceNot published$49/mo
Free planYesNo
Free trial—14 days
Built forDevelopers, Enterprise, Small businessesDevelopers, Small businesses, Enterprise
Platformswebweb
CountryUS · 2021—
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 Tiden if

Engineering teams that ship a lot of agent-written code and want specs and tests as a hard merge and release gate.

  • Checks changes against the original request, not just code style
  • Unlimited developers and agents on every plan
  • Tests run in your own environment and humans approve merges

Look elsewhere if: Solo developers who want a free AI code reviewer for style and bugs (CodeRabbit, Qodo).

Exa vs Tiden 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

Tiden

  • Starter$49/mo1 product, 3 repos, 25 verified changes/mo; 20% off yearly
  • Team$199/moPer product; 100 verified changes, impact analysis, SAML SSO
  • EnterpriseCustomSCIM, custom verified-change limits, any telemetry volume

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

Tiden · Key features

  • Intent capture at the start of each coding agent session
  • Session close blocked while a promised behavior has no test
  • Product map that drafts specs from your codebase and flags untested ones
  • Versioned specs on their own branch, merged by a human like code
  • Release quality gate on coverage, pass rate and residual risk
  • Production error tracking linked to release, change and prompt

Cons

  • No free plan, only a 14-day trial
  • Starter caps verified changes at 25 a month with no overage
  • Team adds per-change and telemetry overages on top of $199

Exa vs Tiden: FAQ

Do Exa and Tiden have a free plan?

Exa has a free plan. Tiden has no free plan, a 14-day free trial.

Not sure yet?