Open-source alternatives to Perplexity

8 genuinely open-source alternatives. The projects are compared by license, workflow, self-hosting, and pricing.

Why look for a Perplexity alternative?

Perplexity is an AI-powered answer engine that searches the web and generates conversational answers backed by cited sources. People look for alternatives when they want self-hosted search, private research, local models, private document retrieval, multiple providers, verifiable citations, or custom research agents.

Open WebUI

Self-hosted AI platform for local and cloud language models.

Open WebUI provides a unified interface for Ollama, OpenAI-compatible APIs, Anthropic, and other providers, with document RAG, web search, tools, multimodal input, user management, and extensions. Current code uses the Open WebUI License with branding restrictions.

Open WebUI License; older code BSD-3-Clause / MITSelf-hosted

Pricing: Free to self-host; current license includes branding restrictions beyond traditional permissive licenses.

Excellent self-hosting and Ollama integration
Local and cloud models, RAG, web search, tools, and multimodal support
Multi-user support and large community
Current license includes branding restrictions
Current releases are not purely BSD-3-Clause
Team deployments require infrastructure

View on GitHub

AnythingLLM

Local-first AI workspace for documents, models, and agents.

AnythingLLM is an MIT-licensed local-first and self-hostable AI workspace with local or cloud models, document ingestion, vector search, agents, multi-user workspaces, and a developer API.

MITSelf-hosted

Pricing: Free and open source under MIT with desktop and self-hosted deployments.

MIT licensed and no mandatory account
Desktop, local models, document chat, RAG, agents, and API
Multi-user workspaces
More focused on document workflows than general Claude use
Local inference requires suitable hardware
Setup is more involved than a hosted chatbot

View on GitHub

LibreChat

Self-hosted MIT multi-provider AI chat interface.

LibreChat is an MIT-licensed self-hostable chat interface supporting Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Azure, local models, custom agents, files, tools, web search, code execution, model comparison, and multi-user access.

MITSelf-hosted

Pricing: Free and open source under MIT; API provider and infrastructure costs may apply.

MIT licensed and multi-provider
Self-hosted chat, agents, files, tools, and model comparison
Familiar interface with multi-user support
Requires API configuration
Local models need separate infrastructure
Administration is more involved than using Claude directly

View on GitHub

Khoj

Self-hosted personal AI for documents, research, and agents.

Khoj is an AGPL-3.0 self-hostable AI assistant for personal knowledge, files, online research, citations, custom agents, scheduled tasks, and flexible model providers.

AGPL-3.0Self-hosted

Pricing: Free and open source under AGPL-3.0; self-hosting and model infrastructure are your responsibility.

Self-hosted document search and research with citations
AI agents, scheduled automations, and model flexibility
Strong personal knowledge workflows
More research-oriented than Claude
Self-hosting requires setup
Smaller ecosystem than larger AI chat platforms

View on GitHub

Morphic

Open-source conversational search and answer engine.

Morphic is an open-source self-hosted AI answer engine designed around conversational search, interactive answers, and dynamically generated interfaces rather than general-purpose chat alone.

Open-source licenseSelf-hosted

Pricing: Free and self-hostable; model providers and supporting services may incur costs.

Conversational search and interactive answers
Dynamic UI generation
Self-hostable and developer-friendly
Less general-purpose than Claude
More focused on answer-engine workflows
Smaller ecosystem

View on GitHub

Fullmoon

Lightweight local AI assistant optimized for Apple devices.

Fullmoon is an MIT-licensed local AI assistant that runs compatible language models entirely on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro using Apple's hardware acceleration.

MIT

Pricing: Free and open source under MIT; compatible local models run on supported Apple hardware.

Runs completely locally and offline
Private conversations and MIT license
Optimized for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Silicon
Limited to Apple platforms
Smaller models than cloud assistants
Less capable for complex reasoning and smaller ecosystem

View on GitHub

Scira

Open-source AI search engine with cited answers.

Scira is an AGPL-3.0 AI search engine that plans searches, retrieves live sources, cross-checks evidence, and generates answers with inline citations.

AGPL-3.0Self-hosted

Pricing: Free and open source; external search and model providers may incur costs.

Direct Perplexity-style workflow
Cited live web answers
Agentic search and self-hosting
Smaller ecosystem
Some hosted functionality depends on external providers

View on GitHub

SurfSense

Self-hosted AI knowledge search across documents and web sources.

SurfSense is a privacy-focused research platform that ingests PDFs, webpages, YouTube transcripts, audio, Notion, cloud storage, and other sources into searchable knowledge collections.

Apache-2.0 core + BSL-1.1 componentsSelf-hosted

Pricing: Self-hostable open core; some backend functionality uses BSL-1.1.

Broad source ingestion
Private knowledge bases and source-backed answers
Multiple providers and local models
Open core rather than uniformly Apache-2.0
Requires ingestion for many workflows
More infrastructure than a simple search engine

View on GitHub

Compare Perplexity alternatives

Tool	Stars	License	Self-hosted	Pricing
Open WebUI	—	Open WebUI License; older code BSD-3-Clause / MIT	Yes	Free to self-host; current license includes branding restrictions beyond traditional permissive licenses.
AnythingLLM	—	MIT	Yes	Free and open source under MIT with desktop and self-hosted deployments.
LibreChat	—	MIT	Yes	Free and open source under MIT; API provider and infrastructure costs may apply.
Khoj	—	AGPL-3.0	Yes	Free and open source under AGPL-3.0; self-hosting and model infrastructure are your responsibility.
Morphic	—	Open-source license	Yes	Free and self-hostable; model providers and supporting services may incur costs.
Fullmoon	—	MIT	No	Free and open source under MIT; compatible local models run on supported Apple hardware.
Scira	—	AGPL-3.0	Yes	Free and open source; external search and model providers may incur costs.
SurfSense	—	Apache-2.0 core + BSL-1.1 components	Yes	Self-hostable open core; some backend functionality uses BSL-1.1.

Which one should you choose?

Want the closest open-source Perplexity experience

Morphic combines web search with cited answers, multiple search and model providers, generative UI, and local Ollama support.

Morphic

Want an AI research assistant for private documents

Khoj combines web research, private document search, citations, agents, local models, and scheduled research workflows.

Khoj

Want a flexible self-hosted AI platform

Open WebUI combines web search, knowledge bases, tools, agents, local models, cloud providers, and multi-user deployments.

Open WebUI

Want research across company documents and external sources

SurfSense ingests PDFs, webpages, videos, audio, Notion, cloud storage, and other sources into searchable knowledge collections.

SurfSense

Want to chat with documents locally

AnythingLLM provides local and cloud models, document ingestion, RAG, agents, vector databases, and self-hosted workspaces.

AnythingLLM

Want a familiar multi-model chat with search

LibreChat combines multiple model providers, file uploads, custom agents, tools, and web search in one self-hosted interface.

LibreChat

Want completely offline AI

Fullmoon runs compatible models locally on Apple devices, prioritizing private offline conversations rather than live web search.

Fullmoon

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