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Exa vs Jina AI MCP server
Verdict from our tests: Exa passed more of our tasks (4 of 6) than Jina AI (4 of 7). Both are in our web search and page reading category.
| Exa | Jina AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Overall | Partial | Partial |
| Tasks passed | 4 of 6 | 4 of 7 |
| Sign-in | None | None |
| Median task time | 810 ms | 128 ms |
| Slowest task | 1.3 s | 7.0 s |
| Gotchas | 3 | 4 |
| Date tested | Oct 16, 2026 | Oct 16, 2026 |
Exa: task by task
- Works connect (no auth) (398 ms)
- Works web search (MCP Streamable HTTP spec) (983 ms)
- Works fetch a page (MCP transports spec) (137 ms)
- Partial search with nonsense query (1.3 s)
- Works fetch a missing page (810 ms)
- Partial error handling (number as query) (1.3 s)
Exa gotchas
- Results are large (about 35 KB for 5 results). Lower numResults to save context.
- A nonsense query still returns unrelated results instead of an empty set, so agents cannot tell "nothing found" from a weak match.
- A number passed as the query was accepted and searched (it returned the Wikipedia page for 42) instead of failing validation. The required objective field was not enforced either.
Set up Exa: Claude | Claude Code | Cursor | VS Code | ChatGPT
Jina AI: task by task
- Works connect (no auth) (371 ms)
- Works list tools (103 ms)
- Works read a page (MCP transports spec) (7.0 s)
- Partial web search ("MCP Streamable HTTP") (128 ms)
- Partial arXiv search ("model context protocol") (28 ms)
- Partial read a missing page (1.6 s)
- Works error handling (number as url) (47 ms)
Jina AI gotchas
- Reading a page took about 7 s.
- search_web without an API key returns "Please set your API key" instead of results. Get a free key at jina.ai.
- search_arxiv also needs an API key.
- Reading a URL that returns a 404 page came back as a normal success with that page's text, not an error.
Set up Jina AI: Claude | Claude Code | Cursor | VS Code | ChatGPT
Best MCP servers for web search and page reading | All tested connectors