Brave Search MCP vs Exa MCP vs Tavily MCP: Which Search Server Should You Use?

Three MCP servers let your AI assistant search the web in real time: Brave Search MCP, Exa MCP, and Tavily MCP. All three fetch live information, but they use fundamentally different approaches -- keyword matching, neural embeddings, and AI-optimized extraction. The right choice depends on what kind of searching you actually need.

graph TD
    A{What do you need?} -->|General keyword search| B[Brave Search MCP]
    A -->|Find similar content| C[Exa MCP]
    A -->|AI-ready extracted content| D[Tavily MCP]
    A -->|Local business search| B
    A -->|Research & academic papers| C
    A -->|Minimal round-trips| D
    B -->|Need full content too?| E[Pair with Firecrawl or Jina]

The Three Approaches

Brave Search does traditional keyword matching -- same approach as Google and Bing. Includes a unique local search tool for finding businesses and services.

Exa uses neural search, finding pages by meaning rather than keywords. Its find_similar tool takes a URL and returns semantically similar pages -- invaluable for research and competitive analysis.

Tavily is purpose-built for AI agents. It pre-processes results and returns structured, clean content optimized for LLM consumption, combining search and extraction in one step.

Setup

All three: install via npx, provide an API key.

Brave Search MCP

Free tier: 2,000 queries/mo from brave.com/search/api.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "brave-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-brave-search"],
      "env": {
        "BRAVE_API_KEY": "your-brave-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Exa MCP

Free tier: 1,000 searches/mo from exa.ai.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "exa": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "exa-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "EXA_API_KEY": "your-exa-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Tavily MCP

Free tier: 1,000 searches/mo from tavily.com.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tavily": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "tavily-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "TAVILY_API_KEY": "your-tavily-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Token Budget

All three combined use ~3,605 tokens -- less than a single Playwright MCP server. Token budget is not a meaningful differentiator here. Pick based on search quality for your use case.

Where tokens matter is in results: Brave returns compact snippets (fewer tokens per result), Exa can return full page content (more useful but heavier), and Tavily hits a middle ground with pre-processed extractions.

When to Choose Each

Choose Brave Search MCP for general-purpose web search. Keyword search works well for most developer queries -- documentation, error solutions, package information. Best free tier at 2,000 queries/mo, and the only option with local search.

Choose Exa MCP for research and discovery. When you need to find content based on concepts rather than exact keywords, or when you need find_similar to discover related resources. Best for academic papers, niche documentation, and knowledge synthesis.

Choose Tavily MCP for AI-native workflows. If your assistant frequently needs real-time web information, Tavily's search-and-extract approach is the most efficient -- one tool call instead of search + follow-up read. Highest adoption at 37,662 weekly downloads.

Can You Run Multiple?

You can, but you probably should not. The real problem is tool confusion -- your assistant has to decide which search tool to use for each query. The exception: Brave + Exa is genuinely complementary (keyword search + semantic search). Brave or Exa alongside Tavily is redundant.

The Verdict

Tavily MCP is the recommendation for most developers -- best balance of result quality, content extraction, and AI-native design. But if you need keyword-precise searches or local search, Brave Search MCP is the better fit. Exa MCP wins for research-heavy workflows where semantic understanding matters.

Related Posts

• Firecrawl MCP vs Jina Reader MCP -- web scraping comparison
• Best MCP Servers for Content Creators -- content research stack
• Best MCP Servers for AI & ML Engineers -- AI-focused stack
• Best MCP Servers for Indie Hackers -- lean startup stack
• Cut Your MCP Token Costs -- optimize your context window
• Choose MCP Servers That Work -- picking quality servers