15 Best Perplexity Alternatives: Free AI Alternatives to Try Now!

Are you looking for alternatives to perplexity? Here you have landed at the right place. I mean. If you are reading this article, you are likely seeking better alternatives to Perplexity AI.

I’m here to guide you with my honesty and public reviews. I’m not going to be biased towards any tool and didn’t take any sponsorship with these tools.

Because I’ve taken the oath to give you guys a super seamless AI tools experience. Now, come to the point, Perplexity Alternative. I know you guys just want them from me.

Understand why you need Perplexity Alternatives?

In these fast-moving fields like research, marketing, or software development, or any kind of field, you might need a tool or AI assistant that delivers fresher results. Results like richer data visualization, industry-specific insights, and much more.

No doubt Perplexity is a powerful AI search engine and now has market share in web search, But All good things come at a cost! It has some limitations.

You can only do Pro queries, Deep research queries only 3 times a day, and even Perplexity Labs queries are not available in the free tier, and even the Pro tier has limitations.

First of all, you need to decide why you need this perplexity AI Alternative? Is it due to the cost, or do you genuinely need an AI Search Engine that delivers the best results without limitations?

Because in the next few years, I’m going to pick some Powerful Alternatives to Perplexity working in 2025. I will tell you their Features, pricing, limitations, Strengths, and more.

Let’s discover how I deliver these alternatives. 

How do we choose Perplexity Alternatives?

Before moving towards the Perplexity Alternatives, I want to clear things up about how I choose these things and provide you with the best options as a search engine alternative. How do I choose tools?

There are a lot of factors, but the general thing is that I look for platforms that combine real-time web access with accurate, citation-backed answers, just like Perplexity. Next, I evaluate each AI-powered alternative based on speed, interface design, pricing flexibility, privacy safeguards, and a lot of other factors.

I would like to say: Enjoy the mango, don’t count the pits. 

15 Best Perplexity Alternatives

When it comes to the best alternatives to Perplexity, there are a lot of alternatives available. But I’ve covered all the similar search engines by comparing a lot of crucial factors. Here are the best perplexity alternatives.

Best Overall

Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft’s AI-powered assistant, specially designed to help users work faster, smarter, and more creatively. It’s integrated with various Microsoft Apps like Windows, Microsoft 365 apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams), Edge, and Bing. It acts as a personal productivity partner to boost your outcomes.

It was launched in 2023 as Bing Chat, and then it evolved into a unified Copilot brand and now replaces Cortana in Windows. Powered by Microsoft’s Prometheus model, which integrates OpenAI’s GPT-4/5 with Bing search and Microsoft Graph. It delivers real-time and contextual responses regarding the query.

Windows Copilot is accessible directly from the taskbar or via a dedicated Copilot key on newer keyboards(Only new Devices). Standalone Copilot apps for iOS and Android offer AI assistance on the go on mobile. Microsoft 365 Copilot is available to enterprise customers as an add-on. And Copilot Pro offers advanced features for individuals at about $20/month.

Gemini Deep Research

Gemini Deep Research is an agentic AI feature that comes in Google’s Gemini platform. It’s designed to handle complex research tasks intelligently for better outcomes. It transforms your prompt into a personalized, multi-step research plan, which you can review or adjust before execution. AI then searches the web on the backend. It refines queries by running multiple iterations.

It synthesizes the gathered information into a comprehensive report, complete with links to sources and support for export (e.g., Google Docs). The output can also include audio overviews according to the input.

This tool runs on Google’s latest 2.5 Pro model, enabling deeper reasoning and richer report outputs. As of early 2025, it has become freely available for limited use to all users. But Advanced subscribers extend the access and use it properly.

Gemini Basic is free, while Gemini Advanced costs $19.99/month, and Google AI Ultra is priced at $249.99/month (discounted to $124.99/month for the first 3 months). It includes all Pro features plus Deep Think mode Veo 3, Flow, Project Mariner (early access), YouTube Premium, and 30 TB of storage. According to me, it’s the best AI-powered search engine.

Grok (xAI)

Grok is Elon Musk’s AI chatbot developed under xAI. It is integrated with X (formerly Twitter), mobile apps, and Tesla vehicles. It has evolved a lot, through multiple versions, with Grok 4 being the current flagship launched in July 2025. It takes data from Twitter and the latest trends to train itself.

So the data is probably accurate because it’s collected from the real-time trends on the X platform. For a limited time, Grok 4 was made available to all users for free. But Grok 4 Heavy remained locked behind the paid tier.

Free-tier access includes usage caps, such as 5 queries per 12 hours. SuperGrok (single-agent access to Grok 4) is at $30/month, and SuperGrok Heavy (multi-agent access to Grok 4 Heavy, the most powerful version) is at $300/month.

Most Private

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo delivers quick answers using  AI directly in search results. These responses are sourced from across the web, not just Wikipedia. It also includes clear citations so you can verify where the information comes from.

You have control over how frequently these answers appear, like, often, sometimes (default), on-demand, or never. You can use DuckDuckGo’s AI-Assisted Answers anytime, without any fee or pricing. It’s a part of DuckDuckGo’s broader vision, making powerful AI tools accessible and private for everyone for free.

Brave Leo

Brave Leo is an AI assistant embedded within the Brave browser (desktop, Android, iOS). It helps summarize web pages, videos, PDFs, and Google Docs. Also, you can use it to get answers to questions and generate new content (essays, emails, code).

It supports translating text or rewriting passages, all while you browse. It engages privately, has no sign-ups, chats aren’t logged, and data isn’t used for AI training. Brave Leo’s Free Tier gives all Brave browser users access to core AI features like summarizing web pages and much more, as described above.

The Leo Premium subscription, priced at $14.99 per month or $149.99 per year, unlocks a lot of premium features.

For Developers

Phind

Phind is an AI-powered search engine specially built for developers, engineers, and technical professionals who need precise, context-aware answers quickly. Unlike generic search tools, Phind is optimized to understand programming queries, debug code, explain algorithms, and even provide complete working examples and much more.

Phind offers a free tier that includes a limited number of daily queries using the Phind-70B model. Its Pro plan is around $20/month or $17/month billed annually, which unlocks unlimited searches, access to larger and faster models like Phind-405B.

Tak by Phospho

Tak by Phospho is a lightweight, developer-focused AI search engine built to deliver fast, precise, and code-oriented search results.

It’s designed for technical professionals and coders who are looking for relevant and up-to-date insights. Tak is usually free for developers, offering unlimited usage and private search history. Signing up unlocks full access at no cost.

For advanced or team workflows, Phospho provides optional pro features through a credit-based pricing model. Starts at $1 per 1,000 credits.

For Academics

Consensus

Consensus is an AI-driven search engine that distills evidence-based answers straight from scientific literature. It scans over 200 million peer-reviewed research papers and compiles the most relevant findings into concise summaries.

Consensus operates on a freemium model, offering both free and paid access. Users can use Consensus at Free Tier ($0/ 0/month) with basic access, which is often referred to as the beta experience.

User can unlock unlimited access to advanced features such as in-depth Pro Analyses at $11.99/month or $107.88/year. 

SciSpace

SciSpace, the old name of Typeset, is an AI-based platform designed to streamline academic research through fully trained models. They assist in discovering, understanding, and managing scientific literature. It supports a lot of features, like, i.e.,

Semantic search across hundreds of millions of papers, Chat with PDF features for asking questions directly in documents, Simplified explanations of technical terms, equations, tables, and even whole passages, Citation generator, paraphraser, AI content detector, and PDF-to-video conversion capabilities, and much more.

You can get limited features for free. In which you will be given core functionalities like PDF chat and basic literature search. In premium, their prices are approximately $20 per month. 

Elicit

Elicit is another AI model option as a research assistant. It’s built to speed up literature reviews by finding relevant papers. You can use it as an alternative to perplexity to enhance your productivity.

You can do multiple things through it, Such as summarizing findings, extracting data from PDFs, and generating transparent, cited reports, and much more. Its free plan lets you search 125+ million papers. Chat with up to 4 at a time, and extract from 20 PDFs per month. 

Pro Alternatives

Arc Search

Arc Search is another AI-based browser created by The Browser Company that focuses on making searching and browsing faster and smarter than ever.

It integrates a clean, modern interface with an integrated AI assistant. In which you can get answers to questions, summarize pages, and even rewrite content instantly. One of their main goal is to cut down on tab overload and provide information with just one click.

It has a lot of features, including quick search, instant previews, AI summaries, organized tabs, and built-in note-taking, and much more to improve productivity. It’s free to use, so enjoy the free nuts.

Kagi

Kagi is a paid, ad-free search engine built by Kagi Inc. It provides full privacy, control, and high-quality results on the SERP.

You can do 100 free searches to test things out and then decide whether you need it or not. After that, their Starter plan gives you 300 searches per month for just about $5. I think it’s a premium search engine with advanced AI.

Komo

Komo Search is also a backed search engine that keeps things clean, private, and ad-free, similar to the above. It gives you smart, concise answers with features like assisted search, explore mode, mind maps, chat, and much more.

It’s like an AI agent that provides you with an AI research assistant. I’ve personally tested many multiple AI models, but found this very helpful. Its AI-powered search beat all its competitors.

This tool’s basic plan costs around $15 per month, which gives you access to top AI models, highlight tools, deep dive options, and fact-check features.

Andi

Andi is the best AI-powered search engine built to give you direct, visual answers without ads or tracking. It gives you summaries, visuals, and interactive results that make information easy to digest, instead of showing a long list of links.

You can use Andi for free with its standard features. Which already covers most everyday searches. For more features or for professional use, Andi Pro is available at about $10 per month. It offers faster responses, advanced AI models, and early access to new tools.

You.com

You.com is an AI-based search and productivity platform that blends traditional search results with conversational AI, summaries, and app-like tools in one place.

It’s built to save time by giving direct answers. It can generate content, write code, and even create images without switching between different services.

The free plan offers core AI chat, search, and image generation with daily usage limits. For image generation you can use multiple tools. I’ve covered here custom animated superhero avatar generators, You can use them for free as well.!

For more power, YouPro costs around $15 per month.

Free Perplexity Alternatives?

You.com

NeevaAI

Kagi

Perplexity Free Tier

YouChat

ChatGPT Free (OpenAI)

Phind

Hugging Face Chat

Claude Free (Anthropic)

Elicit

Which is better than Perplexity?

I’ve just explained to you the best alternatives with their features and their pricing. Most of the Tools are open-source, and anybody can use them. I’ve added all the tools that can be a perfect match for you.

You can also create content with natural language through these tools. They can be your AI writing assistant.

Some other questions rise in our mind!

Here are some questions rise in our mind while searching for better options that alternates Perplexity.

Is there a free Perplexity?

Yes, Perplexity has a free tier. Use the free tier for testing, and then you can decide whether you want to use the paid one or not.

Which is better, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity?

According to me, Perplexity is a way better than ChatGPT and Gemini because its have the ability to fetch live results. While ChatGPT and Gemini lack there.

Is Claude better than Perplexity?

Claude is a different tool. You can compare it with ChatGPT, but you can’t compare it with perplexity.

Do these tools replace Google?

No, Google is the largest database containing millions of search results. So they can’t replace Google, but somehow the search market share will be divided now after these powerful AI.

Which is most accurate for news vs. research?

Perplexity here wins because of its live searching and fact-checking ability.

My Opinion

In my opinion, perplexity is the best option for those who want live and recent results. But if you want a writing assistant or code assistant, the best option is ChatGPT and Gemini. You can also consider other AI tools according to your needs. I’ve already done research on it; you just enjoy the final results.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this effort. Leave comments and share it with your friends.