AmygdalavsExa AI

Expert authority search
vs semantic web search

Which fits your AI stack?

Exa finds semantically relevant web pages using neural search. Amygdala finds the verified humans behind the ideas and ranks them by genuine authority signals, not page relevance. Here's how they differ.

FeatureAmygdalaExa AI
What it returnsAuthority-ranked expert profiles (JSON)Semantically relevant web pages and content
Search typeSemantic expert and authority searchNeural semantic web search
Authority scoring✓ Built-in authority ranking✗ Relevance scoring only, no expert ranking
Infrastructure100% EU (Hetzner, Mistral, Weaviate)US-based (San Francisco)
GDPR compliance✓ Full, no US data transfers✗ US-based, requires SCCs for EU use
MCP support✓ 4 native tools✗ No official MCP server
REST API✓ 4 endpoints✓ Multiple endpoints (Search, Find Similar, Contents)
Free tier$50 starter credits1,000 free requests/month
Pricing$25/1K searches$5–7/1K requests (Instant/Search tiers)

Why developers choose Amygdala over Exa

Finding people, not pages.

People, not pages

Exa's neural search finds relevant content. Amygdala identifies the actual experts behind that content: verified profiles, authority ranks, and structured data your LLM can use directly.

Built for EU compliance

Exa is a US company. Sending personal data about experts through a US-based API triggers GDPR transfer obligations. Amygdala runs 100% on European infrastructure with no US data transfers.

Anti-spam by design

Web search, even neural search, surfaces SEO-gamed content, AI-generated noise, and low-quality pages that score well on relevance. Amygdala surfaces genuine human experts, filtered for real authority.

API comparison

Same query. Very different data.

Query both APIs for "AI safety experts" and compare what comes back.

Exa: neural web search
Request
curl -X POST "https://api.exa.ai/search" \
  -H "x-api-key: exa_..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "query": "top experts on AI safety",
    "numResults": 5,
    "type": "neural"
  }'
Response
{
  "results": [
    {
      "title": "AI Safety — Alignment Forum",
      "url": "https://alignmentforum.org/posts/...",
      "score": 0.87,
      "publishedDate": "2024-03-15",
      "author": "Paul Christiano"
    },
    {
      "title": "On the Importance of AI Safety Research",
      "url": "https://lesswrong.com/posts/...",
      "score": 0.82,
      "author": null
    }
  ]
}
Result: Forum posts and articles scored by relevance. One has an author field, one doesn't. No verified identity, no authority rank, no social profile. You still have to figure out who these people are.
Amygdala: authority index API
Request
curl "https://api.amygdala.eu/api/v1/index/?query=AI+safety&limit=5" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer amyg_..."
Response: ranked experts
{
  "duration": 0.084,
  "results": [
    {
      "sdu": "2941...207",
      "name": "Stuart Russell",
      "rank": 1,
      "country_name": "United States",
      "topic": "AI Safety"
    },
    {
      "sdu": "1839...561",
      "name": "Paul Christiano",
      "rank": 2,
      "country_name": "United States",
      "topic": "AI Safety"
    }
  ]
}
Enrich with /detail/
{
  "results": [{
    "name": "Stuart Russell",
    "bio": "Professor at UC Berkeley. Pioneer of AI safety research, co-author of the standard AI textbook.",
    "country": "United States",
    "topics": ["AI Safety", "Machine Learning"],
    "socials": {
      "twitter":  { "handle": "@stuartjrussell", "followers": 52400 },
      "linkedin": { "handle": "stuart-russell-ai",  "followers": 18200 }
    }
  }]
}
Result: Ranked expert identities with verified social handles, follower counts, and structured bios, deduplicated, ready for your LLM context or UI.

Pricing comparison

What you pay for.

Exa AI
$5–7/1K requests

Instant: ~$5/1K. Search: ~$7/1K. 1,000 free requests/month.

Returns semantically relevant web pages. No expert verification, no authority ranking, no social enrichment.

Amygdala
$25/1K searches

$50 in free credits on signup. No credit card required.

Returns authority-ranked expert profiles with verified social handles, bios, peer networks, and GDPR-compliant EU hosting included.

Start free

When to use which

Different tools for different jobs.

Use Exa when you need:
  • Semantically similar web content retrieval
  • Neural search across the open web
  • Find-similar-to-URL discovery
  • Content retrieval for document-based RAG
Use Amygdala when you need:
  • Verified expert identities ranked by authority
  • Anti-spam, anti-AI-noise expert data
  • GDPR-compliant expert data for EU products
  • Social handle enrichment and verification
  • Peer network and influence graph mapping
  • MCP tools for Claude, Cursor, and AI agents
  • Structured expert profiles for AI attribution

Tip: Use Exa to find relevant content, Amygdala to verify and rank the authors behind it. See how to build this in a RAG pipeline →

Start with $50 in free credits

No credit card required. Full API access from day one.