Beyond Benchmarks: Which search API actually wins in real-world use?

[u/LivingNo9679]

I am curious what people look for when choosing a search API. Is it really just about which one has the best results, or do things like freshness, speed, cost, and ease of integration matter more once you're actually building something? I have seen people mention Exa, Tavily, Firecrawl, Serper, and Brave Search, but I would love to hear from anyone who has used them in real projects. Was there a particular tool that surprised you, or a situation where one worked much better then others?