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Perplexica: the best Open Source alternative to Perplexity AI in 2026

Perplexica is an open source AI search engine that combines a web search engine (SearXNG) with an LLM to give answers with cited sources, as an alternative to Perplexity AI.

License MIT ~20k stars (estimated)Website GitHub Repository

Technical profile

License: MIT
Category: Artificial Intelligence
Replaces: Perplexity AI
Tech stack: Next.jsSearXNG

Preview

Public image provided by Perplexica on its own website.

Key features

Perplexity-style answers with cited sources
Uses SearXNG for private web search
Connects to local or cloud models

Perplexica vs. Perplexity AI

Pros

Web search with no dependency on any commercial search API

Things to consider

Result quality depends on the engines configured in SearXNG

Quick Docker installation guide

Copy this docker-compose.yml, adjust the example passwords and run docker compose up -d on your server. See the full step-by-step guide →

docker-compose.yml

version: "3.9"
services:
  perplexica:
    image: itzcrazykns1337/perplexica:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    environment:
      - SEARXNG_API_URL=http://perplexica-searxng:8080
    depends_on:
      - perplexica-searxng
  perplexica-searxng:
    image: searxng/searxng:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
volumes: {}