GNews vs Exa: full comparison for 2026
Quick verdict
GNews (4.3/5) edges ahead of Exa (4.2/5) overall. GNews is the better choice for small commercial apps needing a cheap, simple news feed. Exa is the stronger option for RAG and agent developers needing semantic news retrieval. The right pick depends on your budget, how much history you need and whether you need full text.
GNews vs Exa: head-to-head summary
| Criterion | GNews | Exa |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | Not disclosed | 2021 |
| HQ | Not publicly disclosed | San Francisco, USA |
| Team size | Not publicly disclosed | 51–200 |
| Rating | 4.3 / 5 | 4.2 / 5 |
| Primary differentiator | Commercial rights and full article content for under €50 a month | Search by meaning with page text returned in the same request |
| Pricing model | Monthly or yearly plans in euros | Pay per request; free monthly credit |
| Entry price | €49.99/mo | $7 per 1,000 searches |
| Formats & SDKs | REST API, JSON | REST API, JSON, Python SDK |
| Typical uses | News & content apps, AI & LLM apps, Marketing & PR | AI & LLM apps, Research & academia |
GNews vs Exa: overview
GNews
GNews keeps its surface small: one search endpoint, one top-headlines endpoint, and filters for country, language and category. That small surface is why developers like it, because the docs fit on one page and a working call takes a few minutes. The free tier allows 100 requests a day for non-commercial work with 30 days of history. Essential, at €49.99 a month, adds commercial rights, 1,000 requests a day and articles back to 2020, while Business and Enterprise raise the daily quota to 5,000 and 25,000. The weak spot is the company itself. The site credits a studio called Gigathink and gives only a contact email, so its size, founding year and support capacity are unknown.
Exa
Exa Labs started in San Francisco in 2021 as Metaphor, founded by Will Bryk and Jeff Wang, and raised an $85 million Series B led by Benchmark in September 2025. It runs its own web index searched by meaning, so a query like "startups cutting cloud costs" can match articles that never use those words. Set the category to news and ask for contents, and one request returns cleaned text you can drop into a prompt. As of 2026 search costs $7 per 1,000 requests with contents for the top 10 results included, and new accounts start with $20 of credit. SDKs cover Python and TypeScript, and an official MCP server plugs it into agent tools. It is a search engine at heart, so expect weaker coverage of small regional outlets and fuzzier publication dates than a dedicated news API gives.
Features: GNews vs Exa
| Capability | GNews | Exa |
|---|---|---|
| Full article text | ✓ | ✓ |
| Historical archive | ✓ | ✗ |
| NLP enrichment | ✗ | ✗ |
| Story/event clustering | ✗ | ✗ |
| Official SDK | ✗ | ✓ |
| Streaming or webhooks | ✗ | ✗ |
| Free access | ✓ | ✓ |
Formats and SDKs: GNews vs Exa
| Format / SDK | GNews | Exa |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | ✓ | ✓ |
| Python SDK | N/A | ✓ |
| Node.js SDK | N/A | ✓ |
| Webhooks | N/A | N/A |
| WebSocket | N/A | N/A |
| MCP server | N/A | ✓ |
| S3/bulk delivery | N/A | N/A |
| BigQuery | N/A | N/A |
Pricing comparison: GNews vs Exa
| Criterion | GNews | Exa |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | €49.99/mo | $7 per 1,000 searches |
| Pricing model | Monthly or yearly plans in euros | Pay per request; free monthly credit |
| Access models | Free tier, Monthly plans | Free tier, Pay-as-you-go, Enterprise contract |
| Price transparency | Public price | Public price |
| Price tier | Budget | Budget |
Who each API suits: GNews vs Exa
| Dimension | GNews | Exa |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer type | Individuals to enterprise | Individuals to enterprise |
| Typical uses | News & content apps, AI & LLM apps, Marketing & PR | AI & LLM apps, Research & academia |
| Example use cases | A news section in a small SaaS product. Headline widgets filtered by country. | Grounding chatbot answers in recent articles. Research agents gathering background on a topic. |
| How you get access | Free tier | Free tier |
GNews vs Exa: pros and cons
| GNews | |
|---|---|
| + | The whole API can be learned in one sitting |
| + | One of the cheapest routes to commercial use, and yearly billing takes about 20% off |
| + | Paid plans return full article content |
| + | Up to 100 articles per request on the top tier |
| - | Nothing before 2020 |
| - | No entity, sentiment or clustering fields |
| - | An unnamed operator makes support and continuity hard to judge |
| Exa | |
|---|---|
| + | Finds relevant coverage that keyword queries miss |
| + | Contents come with results, so there is no second fetch-and-parse step |
| + | An MCP server and Python and TypeScript SDKs are official |
| + | Pay per request with no monthly minimum |
| - | No source taxonomy, sentiment or story clusters |
| - | Publication dates come from crawl metadata and can be off |
| - | Monitoring thousands of queries a day gets expensive |
Who should choose GNews?
A typical fit: a news section in a small SaaS product.
Commercial rights and full article content for under €50 a month. Paid access starts at €49.99/mo. Typical uses: News & content apps, AI & LLM apps, Marketing & PR.
Who should choose Exa?
A typical fit: grounding chatbot answers in recent articles.
Search by meaning with page text returned in the same request. Paid access starts at $7 per 1,000 searches. Typical uses: AI & LLM apps, Research & academia.
Decision matrix: GNews vs Exa
| Your situation | Recommended choice |
|---|---|
| You want to start free before paying | Both |
| Your budget is at the lower end | Exa |
| You need full article text in the response | Both |
| You need years of historical news | GNews |
| You want an official SDK | Exa |
| You are wiring news into an LLM agent | Exa |
Use case fit: GNews vs Exa
| Use case | GNews fit | Exa fit | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| News & content apps | Strong | Limited | GNews |
| AI & LLM apps | Strong | Strong | Both equally |
| Marketing & PR | Strong | Limited | GNews |
| Research & academia | Limited | Strong | Exa |
Verdict: GNews vs Exa
GNews (4.3/5) is the stronger overall choice as a news data source. Commercial rights and full article content for under €50 a month.
Exa (4.2/5) is worth a look if you need research agents gathering background on a topic. If your situation matches that, Exa is a competitive option.
Related comparisons
GNews vs Exa FAQ
Is GNews better than Exa?
GNews (4.3/5) scores higher overall, but "better" depends on your use case. GNews's strongest advantage: the whole API can be learned in one sitting. Exa's strongest advantage: finds relevant coverage that keyword queries miss.
How do GNews and Exa differ in pricing?
GNews: monthly or yearly plans in euros, with paid access from €49.99/mo. Exa: pay per request; free monthly credit, with paid access from $7 per 1,000 searches. Both offer some free access for testing.
Which is better for enterprise: GNews or Exa?
Exa sells enterprise contracts with negotiated volume and SLA terms. Neither carries licensed publisher content, so check copyright terms before republishing anything.
What are the main differences between GNews and Exa?
What sets GNews apart: commercial rights and full article content for under €50 a month. What sets Exa apart: search by meaning with page text returned in the same request. They also differ on entry price (€49.99/mo vs $7 per 1,000 searches) and typical uses (News & content apps, AI & LLM apps vs AI & LLM apps, Research & academia).
Verify all details directly with each API before making a decision.