Exa MCP Server

Connect AI agents to Exa for web search, content fetching, and multi-step research. Its 4 documented tools cover web, exa. It is available as a remote MCP endpoint.

Teams that work with web and exa and want a hosted endpoint instead of running a local process. The project is written in TypeScript.

VERIFIED ACTIVE

LAST COMMIT 2026-09-23 · ★ 5,058 · #13 OF 97 MAINTAINED WEB SCRAPING · VERIFIED 2026-09-30

MIT · TypeScript servers · how we verify → /methodology

01 · Install Exa

Claude Code

claude mcp add exa-labs-exa-mcp-server --transport http https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp

Claude Desktop / Cursor / VS Code - add to config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "exa-labs-exa-mcp-server": {
      "url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Same JSON for Cursor. For VS Code, rename the top-level key from `mcpServers` to `servers`.

Using another client? Same JSON, different key

Claude Desktop · mcpServers

Cursor · mcpServers

VS Code · servers

Windsurf · mcpServers

Zed · context_servers

Cline · mcpServers

Roo Code · mcpServers

Continue · mcpServers

LibreChat · mcpServers

Gemini CLI · mcpServers

Codex CLI · mcp_servers

Full setup guides: every client.

02 · Evidence

https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp

transport: streamable-http

endpoint alive - responded to MCP initialize · probed 2026-09-30

Security posture

What to check before giving this server access to your agent - from the registry, GitHub, and our own probes. We don't score safety; we show what's verifiable.

runs as remote - your agent's requests go to mcp.exa.ai

endpoint auth accepted our unauthenticated MCP initialize - no credentials needed to connect

license MIT - declared in the repository

registry vendor namespace ai.exa - domain-verified with the official MCP registry

03 · What Exa can do

Prose above is summarized from the project's README and registry record - no invented capabilities.

What you can build

With this server connected, an agent can search the web for any topic and get clean, ready-to-use content, read a webpage's full content as clean markdown from one or more URLs, and run an Exa Agent for multi-step research, list-building, enrichment, and structured output.

Capability map

Tools grouped from the project's README - what Exa lets an agent do.

Web

3 tools - e.g. Search the web for any topic and get clean, ready-to-use content; Read a webpage's full content as clean markdown from one or more URLs; Advanced search with filters, domains, dates, highlights…

web_search_exa · web_fetch_exa · web_search_advanced_exa

Agent

1 tool - e.g. Run an Exa Agent for multi-step research, list-building, enrichment, and structured output

agent_run

In the wild · how people use Exa

Public posts that name a concrete use case. Linked source posts - not MCPhq reviews, ratings, or endorsements.

04 · Who maintains Exa

exa is maintained by exa-labs. We track 2 MCP servers from exa-labs - 1 actively maintained, 5,058 combined GitHub stars, oldest repo from Nov 2024.

05 · Facts

repository
github.com/exa-labs/exa-mcp-server
category
web scraping - ranked #13 of 97 actively-maintained web scraping servers as of 2026-09-30.
registry
ai.exa/exa (active, first published 2025-10-30 · 7 versions)

06 · Exa FAQ

Is Exa still maintained?

Yes - as of 2026-09-30, its last commit was 2026-09-23. We re-verify nightly.

What can Exa do?

With this server connected, an agent can search the web for any topic and get clean, ready-to-use content, read a webpage's full content as clean markdown from one or more URLs, and run an Exa Agent for multi-step research, list-building, enrichment, and structured output.

How do I install Exa?

Run `claude mcp add exa-labs-exa-mcp-server --transport http https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp`. You can also paste the ready-made client config above.

Does Exa require authentication?

No - the endpoint accepted our unauthenticated MCP initialize when probed on 2026-09-30; you can connect without credentials.

07 · Alternatives to Exa

Alternatives to Exa

Maintained web scraping servers if Exa isn't the fit.

  1. Apify MCP Server Extract data from any website with thousands of scrapers, crawlers, and automations on Apify Store ⚡ ★ 8,922 · 2026-09-29
  2. Firecrawl MCP Server MCP server for Firecrawl - web search, scraping, and biomedical/arXiv paper search. ★ 7,536 · 2026-09-30
  3. Tavily MCP MCP server for advanced web search using Tavily ★ 2,416 · 2026-09-29
  4. CRW Web Scraper Open-source web scraper for AI agents with scrape, crawl, and map tools ★ 1,088 · 2026-09-30
  5. Open Brand Extract brand assets (logos, colors, backdrop images, brand name) from any website URL ★ 799 · 2026-05-12
  6. Omnisearch MCP server for integrating Omnisearch with LLMs ★ 351 · 2026-09-30

Pairs well with

Servers that cover what Exa doesn't - only shown when the pairing reason fits the companion.

  1. SearXNG Search → search companion search · ★ 1,268
  2. Server Search → search companion search · ★ 39,168
  3. Supabase → database companion database · ★ 2,926
  4. MongoDB MCP Server → database companion database · ★ 1,137
  5. Codebase Memory → memory companion memory · ★ 45,519
  6. Memorix → memory companion memory · ★ 819

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