Perplexica is an open-source AI-powered searching tool or an AI-powered search engine that goes deep into the internet to find answers. Inspired by Perplexity AI, it's an open-source option that not just searches the web but understands your questions. It uses advanced machine learning algorithms like similarity searching and embeddings to refine results and provides clear answers with sources cited.
- **Copilot Mode:** (In development) Boosts search by generating different queries to find more relevant internet sources. Like normal search instead of just using the context by SearxNG, it visits the top matches and tries to find relevant sources to the user's query directly from the page.
- **Normal Mode:** Processes your query and performs a web search.
- **Current Information:** Some search tools might give you outdated info because they use data from crawling bots and convert them into embeddings and store them in a index (its like converting the web into embeddings which is quite expensive.). Unlike them, Perplexica uses SearxNG, a metasearch engine to get the results and rerank and get the most relevent source out of it, ensuring you always get the latest information without the overhead of daily data updates.
It has many more features like image and video search. Some of the planned features are mentioned in [upcoming features](#upcoming-features).
## Installation
There are mainly 2 ways of installing Perplexica - With Docker, Without Docker. Using Docker is highly recommended.
1. Follow the initial steps to clone the repository and rename the `.env.example` file to `.env` in the root directory. You will need to fill in all the fields in this file.
2. Additionally, rename the `.env.example` file to `.env` in the `ui` folder and complete all fields.
3. The non-Docker setup requires manual configuration of both the backend and frontend.
**Note**: Using Docker is recommended as it simplifies the setup process, especially for managing environment variables and dependencies.
If you find Perplexica useful, consider giving us a star on GitHub. This helps more people discover Perplexica and supports the development of new features. Your support is appreciated.
Perplexica is built on the idea that AI and large language models should be easy for everyone to use. If you find bugs or have ideas, please share them in via GitHub Issues. For more information on contributing to Perplexica you can read the [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) file to learn more about Perplexica and how you can contribute to it.
