MotherDuck vs Exa vs Consensus vs Jhana
A side-by-side look at scores, pricing and features — with RECATOOLS' ASEAN-aware verdict for each.
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Exa
Web search and retrieval API built for AI agents and apps
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Consensus
Search engine for scientific research that tells you what the evidence...
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Jhana
AI paralegal searching 16M+ Indian judgments and statutes with citatio...
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| RECATOOLS Score | 7.8 / 10 | 7.7 / 10 | 7.3 / 10 | 6.6 / 10 |
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| API quality | ||||
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium | Freemium | Freemium |
| Free tier | 10 GB storage, 10 compute-hours/month, up to 3 users — no credit card required | 20,000 search requests per month on the free plan; startup and education grants of $1,000 in free API credits also available | 20 searches per day with basic features | — |
| Paid from | Business plan from $250/month + pay-as-you-go compute ($0.60–$36/hr) | API search billed at $7 per 1,000 requests (as of March 2026 pricing update) | $9.99/month (Premium) | — |
| Has API | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Open source | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Free to use | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Users | Thousands of developers and data teams (approx. 2,000 at Sep 2023 waitlist removal / Series B) | — | 500k+ users | — |
| Founded | 2022 | 2021 | 2022 | — |
| Maker | MotherDuck (independent, VC-backed) | — | Eric Olson, Christian Salem | — |
| Verdict | MotherDuck is one of the most compelling new entries in the data warehouse space for small-to-mid-sized teams. Its DuckDB foundation delivers genuine sub-second query performance on local and cloud data, the Python/R/Nod... |
Exa is a credible, fast-moving entrant in the agent-search space, with a clean API, MCP support and strong investor backing as of 2026. It competes directly with Parallel and Tavily on freshness and structured retrieval... |
Consensus is an AI-powered academic search engine that answers questions by surfacing findings from peer-reviewed papers, complete with citations, a 'consensus meter' on yes/no questions and study-quality signals. For ev... |
Jhana is a credible, India-focused legal-AI platform with a sizeable proprietary archive, citation-first results and a usable free tier, which lowers the barrier for solo lawyers and small firms. The drafting and bulk-re... |
| Full review → | Full review → | Full review → | Full review → |
Comparisons cover up to 4 tools. Scores are RECATOOLS editorial assessments; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.