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Up to 4 tools, same rows for each: what it is, what it really costs, the trap, and how to wire it up. The URL carries your picks — send it to anyone.
ExaFuse.jsMiniSearch
Quick read
- Free with no card: Fuse.js, MiniSearch.
| Field | Exaexa.ai | Fuse.jsfusejs.io | MiniSearchgithub.com |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A web search API built on an embeddings index rather than a keyword index, so you query by meaning and describe the page you want instead of guessing keywords. Returns cleaned page contents, highlights and AI summaries in the same call, plus an Answer endpoint that cites its sources. | A zero-dependency fuzzy-search library using the Bitap algorithm — roughly 6.8kB gzipped for the basic build, 8.6kB for the full one. Searches arrays of JS objects in memory with typo tolerance, field weighting, nested keys and extended query operators. Runs in browsers, Node and Deno. | A dependency-free JavaScript full-text search engine that builds a real inverted index in memory, in the browser or in Node. Supports prefix search, fuzzy matching, field boosting, modern relevance ranking, auto-suggestion, and adding or removing documents at any time. The index serializes to JSON so it can be prebuilt. |
| Category | Search, vector & RAG | Search, vector & RAG | Search, vector & RAG |
| Cost tier | mixed | free | free |
| Pricing | $20 free credits at signup (about 2,800 searches) plus $10 in free credits every month, no card. Search $7 per 1K requests for 10 results, $1 per 1K extra results, Contents $1 per 1K pages per content type, Answer $5 per 1K requests. | Free, Apache-2.0. No service, no account, no limits, no bill. | Free, MIT-licensed. No service or account. |
| Why builders pick it | When an agent needs sources rather than blue links, Exa hands back full extracted text in one round trip. The recurring $10 monthly credit means a small agent never sees a bill. | When a few hundred to a few thousand items already sit in your app state — a command palette, a settings list, a filterable table — this is ten lines of code and no infrastructure. | The step up from Fuse.js when you have tens of thousands of records — a proper index instead of rescoring every item per keystroke, still with no backend and no bill. |
| Watch out for | Neural search costs more per query than SERP resellers and can miss exact-string lookups — switch to keyword or auto mode for those. Rate limited to 5 QPS on the free tier. | It scores every item on every keystroke, so it degrades noticeably past roughly 10K records. Use MiniSearch or a real index above that. | The whole index ships to the client, so a large corpus means a large download. Prebuild and cache the serialized JSON rather than indexing on every page load. |
| How to wire it up | npm i exa-js | npm i fuse.js | npm i minisearch |
| Editor's pick | No | No | No |
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# Tool comparison — Exa vs Fuse.js vs MiniSearch Source: Kbaise, a directory of tools that work with Lovable projects. Pick one and tell me why before writing any integration code. ## Exa (exa) - URL: https://exa.ai - Category: Search, vector & RAG - Cost: mixed — $20 free credits at signup (about 2,800 searches) plus $10 in free credits every month, no card. Search $7 per 1K requests for 10 results, $1 per 1K extra results, Contents $1 per 1K pages per content type, Answer $5 per 1K requests. - What it is: A web search API built on an embeddings index rather than a keyword index, so you query by meaning and describe the page you want instead of guessing keywords. Returns cleaned page contents, highlights and AI summaries in the same call, plus an Answer endpoint that cites its sources. - Why builders pick it: When an agent needs sources rather than blue links, Exa hands back full extracted text in one round trip. The recurring $10 monthly credit means a small agent never sees a bill. - Trap: Neural search costs more per query than SERP resellers and can miss exact-string lookups — switch to keyword or auto mode for those. Rate limited to 5 QPS on the free tier. - Wiring: npm i exa-js - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/exa ## Fuse.js (fuse-js) - URL: https://www.fusejs.io - Category: Search, vector & RAG - Cost: free — Free, Apache-2.0. No service, no account, no limits, no bill. - What it is: A zero-dependency fuzzy-search library using the Bitap algorithm — roughly 6.8kB gzipped for the basic build, 8.6kB for the full one. Searches arrays of JS objects in memory with typo tolerance, field weighting, nested keys and extended query operators. Runs in browsers, Node and Deno. - Why builders pick it: When a few hundred to a few thousand items already sit in your app state — a command palette, a settings list, a filterable table — this is ten lines of code and no infrastructure. - Trap: It scores every item on every keystroke, so it degrades noticeably past roughly 10K records. Use MiniSearch or a real index above that. - Wiring: npm i fuse.js - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/fuse-js ## MiniSearch (minisearch) - URL: https://github.com/lucaong/minisearch - Category: Search, vector & RAG - Cost: free — Free, MIT-licensed. No service or account. - What it is: A dependency-free JavaScript full-text search engine that builds a real inverted index in memory, in the browser or in Node. Supports prefix search, fuzzy matching, field boosting, modern relevance ranking, auto-suggestion, and adding or removing documents at any time. The index serializes to JSON so it can be prebuilt. - Why builders pick it: The step up from Fuse.js when you have tens of thousands of records — a proper index instead of rescoring every item per keystroke, still with no backend and no bill. - Trap: The whole index ships to the client, so a large corpus means a large download. Prebuild and cache the serialized JSON rather than indexing on every page load. - Wiring: npm i minisearch - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/minisearch ## Quick read - Free with no card: Fuse.js, MiniSearch. ## Rules 1. Prefer the free tier when no budget was stated, and say what the ceiling is. 2. Read the full dossier before integrating. 3. Fetch /api/public/models before writing any AI model ID.
Agents can fetch the same thing: GET /api/public/compare?slugs=exa,fuse-js,minisearch