Keenable
Shares rank 8 of 12 search APIs by recommenders
Recommended as a cheaper, lower-latency alternative to Exa with similar quality, with fast, sensible results. Critics note Grokipedia sometimes outranks Wikipedia and some queries fail.
Recommended as a cheaper, lower-latency alternative to Exa with similar quality, with fast, sensible results. Critics note Grokipedia sometimes outranks Wikipedia and some queries fail.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 70%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Cheaper and lower latency than Exa
“we are competitive in quality to exa (the market leader) but much cheaper and lower latency”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: Keenable – A different web search API for AI agents” “The main differences are lower price and latency while having roughly the same”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: Keenable – A different web search API for AI agents” Similar quality to Exa
“we are competitive in quality to exa (the market leader) but much cheaper and lower latency”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: Keenable – A different web search API for AI agents” “The main differences are lower price and latency while having roughly the same”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: Keenable – A different web search API for AI agents” Fast, sensible results, few issues
“I've been using keenable a lot and I've had no noticable issues with it”
Comment from 6 Oct 2026 in “Web Search API” “Seemed pretty fast, used reasonable sources, results makes sense”
Comment from 1 Sep 2026 in “Keenable SELECT: an agent that searches the web in SQL”
Other search APIs people recommend
The four most recommended other search APIs, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exa | 33 | 9 | 79% | 10 | — | Approved |
| SerpApi | 16 | 10 | 62% | 8 | — | — |
| Brave Search API | 15 | 3 | 83% | 7 | — | Approved |
| DeepSeek search API | 15 | 7 | 68% | 1 | — | — |
| KeenableThis page | 7 | 3 | 70% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
11 of the 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It's okay but not great. I'm always annoyed grokipedia outranks wikipedia. And some queries return the definitive link at position 5/6 behind grokipedia and other slop.”
“I've been using keenable a lot and I've had no noticable issues with it”
“Generally the same pattern: it's not usable.”
“terrible, i wrote a 10 line prompt and I got this error and completely lost my query”
“SEM_EXTRACT, SEM_MATCH, WEB_SEARCH are pretty vague functions.”
“Seemed pretty fast, used reasonable sources, results makes sense”
“I personally prefer them over deep research reports coming out of chatgpt etc.”
“Looks like it thinks rather highly of itself”
“Showing the prompt trajectories is also a nice touch.”
“The main differences are lower price and latency while having roughly the same”
“we are competitive in quality to exa (the market leader) but much cheaper and lower latency”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.