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Perplexica: Open-source Perplexity alternative
- hackernewds 2y agoHow is this related to Perplexity?
- allanrbo 2y agoFirst I’m hearing of the meta search engine SearxNG too. Neat. Feel like we’ve come full circle, going back to meta search engines again.
- sorokod 2y agoSame here, here is a list of public instances[1]. Docs link [2]. [1] https://searx.space/ https://searx.space/ [2] https://docs.searxng.org/ https://docs.searxng.org/
- KRAKRISMOTT 2y agoCan you add support for Serp API? I prefer to pay for a managed proxy farm instead of using SearxNG which requires too much babysitting.
- throwanem 2y agoOh interesting, with the collapse of Google result quality lately I've been thinking about trying out SearxNG in my homelab. If you want to expand on the headaches you've run into, I'd be interested to hear!
- reckless 2y agoLooks similar to what I've been using for a few weeks https://github.com/miurla/morphic https://github.com/miurla/morphic
- number6 2y agoIs it worth the install or is it just a gimmick?
- hackerlight 2y agoNo need.to install, go to www.morphic.sh
- insane_dreamer 2y agojust tried it; sweet!
- pants2 2y agoI made my own version of this for personal use some time ago, it's a fun project! I use Kagi for the search backend and Colly/ScrapingFish (which has plans starting at $2) for getting the content. Both work really well!
- yosito 2y agoIt would be awesome if this could also search my Obsidian notes at the same time, and if it worked seamlessly on all of my devices.
- tony-vlcek 2y agoLogseq user here with an upvote.
- anewhnaccount2 2y agoI guess it didn't eat your notes yet: https://discuss.logseq.com/t/data-loss-happened-twice-i-cant-trust-logseq-anymore/6896 https://discuss.logseq.com/t/data-loss-happened-twice-i-cant...
- jddj 2y agoI've had Google photos eat ~12 months worth of pictures, I don't really trust anyone to keep my data safe. Logseq has been fine for me over several years, but it also makes it extremely easy to auto-commit to git.
- jhund 2y agoLogseq's git auto-commit is a great insurance policy and should make recovery a breeze.
- eichin 2y agoAh, those appear to be entirely multi-device-sync problems. (I use logseq with git-autocommit for storage and backup - but since the multi-node sync stuff wasn't available for self hosting anyway, I've never tried it, and thus dodged the problem entirely. Obviously for a lot of people multi-device use is the entire point, but for some of us, logseq is "just an editor"...)
- spiralk 2y agoI actually do something like this with my logseq notes. Since all of the files are .md in a directory, one can load them all in to a vectordb and use it for RAG. Logseq has an API too but using the .md files is easy.
- webprofusion 2y agoWhen making an alternative to something, don't reference the name of the thing you're copying if that thing has (or can afford) a legal team to protect their brand. If your product can reasonably be confused with the original (it can) they will eat your soul.
- qxfys 2y ago+1
- michelsedgh 2y agoActually I loved it. I dont think they have any grounds to sue. Its different and close enough. Also they wouldn’t sue a project on github, if they do they show their faces its worse for them. Also many forks will happen and they have to sue many. Worst case you change the name of the repo. Thats the power of open source ;)
- tartrate 2y agoIsn't Yuzu a good counter example?
- freehorse 2y agoIt does not sound relevant to me, because that was a case of "video game piracy". It was not about the name per se.
- theturtletalks 2y agoYuzu’s downfall was not the repo, it was their Discord. They were sharing DRM cracking keys on there and getting paid $30K/month on Patreon. It’s the same reason most emulators require you to bring your own BIOS.
- iforgotpassword 2y agoHuh? So reactos shouldn't say they build an alternative to Windows? As long as you build it yourself and don't steal any resources or secrets, there is no problem mentioning that it's an alternative or replacement for another product. What's much more dangerous is picking a name for your own product that resembles the original.
- throwaway_ab 2y ago[flagged]
- jasonvorhe 2y agoSo that people can easier guess what it's about. It's not like some multinational is saving on advertising by stealing a small company's existing brand recognition. Most users of the "original" will most likely never hear of it nor care enough to setup some docker stuff and do their searches locally.
- zone411 2y agoNot only that, but it opens the project up to having to deal with a trademark cease and desist letter and then having to rebrand. Preplexity would be obligated to send one in order to protect its trademark if they become aware of this. How are seemingly decent software developers so unaware of anything besides coding?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- michelsedgh 2y agoThank you so much for posting this and ofc the creators. My brother and I were in a debate and this just proved my point. Feels real good to see it. Cant wait to try it ;)
- Cilvic 2y agoThis is cool. My biggest question was "does it work?" then I had another look at the repo and saw the "Repocloud" one click deployment. And it's quite well done. Apart from signin up for the repocloud account (3$ free credit) and waiting for the deployment (5mins) ... I'm now waiting for my first answer which doesn't seem to come through and there are not a many ways to trouble shoot as far as I can see... I've asked on discord
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sanjayk0508 2y agoThere's been many other good alternative of perplexica before
- michelsedgh 2y agoCare to share which ones?
- jakozaur 2y agoSorry to say, but this looks like a trademark violation. Though the project may be cool, it immediately put me off: https://www.trademarkia.com/perplexityai-98400215 https://www.trademarkia.com/perplexityai-98400215 I'm not a lawyer, but trademarks are well protected. You can provide similar services and confuse customers by using almost identical names. Don't do Gooogle search engine, Macrosoft OS, etc. If they will get traction, Perplexity could force them to rebrand.
- Terretta 2y agoPerplexity is an information theory term, not a brand: Perplexity of a probability model -- A model of an unknown probability distribution p, may be proposed based on a training sample that was drawn from p. Given a proposed probability model q, one may evaluate q by asking how well it predicts a separate test sample x1, x2, ..., xN also drawn from p. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perplexity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perplexity
- marcinzm 2y agoThat doesn't mean in any way that it can't be a legal trademark.
- calny 2y agoI’m an IP lawyer & AI dev: my first reaction was, “hmm there are trademark issues here.” From a US perspective: “Perplexity” certainly CAN be a trademark, and the company has applied for one—to my knowledge it’s still pending. If the term was merely “descriptive” of the service provided, like “American Airlines”, then the company would need to show that the term has acquired distinctiveness: ie, that purchasers associate the term with that specific company. But perplexity is probably more than merely descriptive here. Assuming that they have a valid trademark, the issue becomes whether there is a likelihood of confusion between Perplexity and Perplexica. That is a fact-specific, multifactor test, which I’ll spare you. But there could be arguments both ways IMO EDIT: trademark issues aside, cool project!
- chakintosh 2y agoI've been using Perplexity for months now on the Free tire (with the 5 Pro searches/4 hours) and its been plenty for me and I use it has completely replaced google for me. So I'm not sure where Perplexica fits in my use case, especially that I'll have to install and maintain it and use lesser models than Perplexity.
- hosh 2y agoSome people want to self-host this technology. AI is very powerful, and not everyone wants that to be controlled by large corporations or institutions.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rvz 2y agoBoth Perplexica and Perplexity are bad names for a search engine. Very perplexed as to who was the smart person that chose this dreadful name for the company. Yes, it has another definition in context to information theory; which my point is, I used the first definition like a normal person would, which is commonly associated with... '...a state of confusion or a complicated and difficult situation or thing.' - Cambridge English Dictionary [0] None of them can ever become a verb that makes sense like 'google it'. [0] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/perplexity https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/perplexi...
- robertlagrant 2y agoI Encartered the concept of verbs and I agree.
- rors 2y agoPerplexity is term from information theory. It's one measure of the quality of an LM. I.e. how perplexed is my model? To an experienced researcher it's a unit of measurement like metres or kg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perplexity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perplexity I agree that it doesn't transfer out of that specialised domain.
- Aloisius 2y agoEh. Still a weird name given one generally wants to reduce perplexity. Might as well call it Uncertainty.
- mdp2021 2y ago'Perplexity' is "through the complexity".
- mdp2021 2y ago'Perplexity' is "through the complexity", which is much better than "proplexity" (see e.g. "profanity") - where you never entered the complexity at all.
- tcsenpai 2y agoI was waiting for this moment since months. Sir, you are the GOAT
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dcreater 2y agoAnyone used it yet? Was posted here a while back. I'm interested to hear whether it works and how good it is rather than many "this looks great" comments. Perplexity.ai itself has been pretty poor for me after I got past the honeymoon phase
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rashadphil 2y agoHere is another open-source alternative: https://github.com/rashadphz/farfalle https://github.com/rashadphz/farfalle (Disclaimer: I made it)
- asadalt 2y agowhich one is better
- octobus2021 2y agoI absolutely love this and will try as many as possible very soon. I think "intelligent search" (asking LLM questions to search on the Web by communicating, preferably by voice) is one of the few solid use cases for LLM. I hate the idea of having this happen in the cloud with someone having my data, so doing this locally with my local LLM would be ideal.
- berz01 2y ago[flagged]
- idle_zealot 2y agoYou're being downvoated, and I think the reason is this: there is a perceived difference in intentionally contributing something like a post on HN and having your personal searches be collected by Google.
- octobus2021 2y agoI would replace "perceived" with "significant" but yeah, pretty much.
- dang 2y agoPlease don't be snarky or post in the flamewar style to HN. We're trying for something else here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- jahewson 2y agoThe web search itself till happening on the cloud though? And instead of searching one provider it now searches multiple… not sure how much better this is really.
- abdullahkhalids 2y agoWhat would be even better, if it could also search my local repository of ebooks and pdfs. Most of the stuff I do, needs serious answers from books or papers I have already selected. Random webpages on the web don't cut it. Citing the book section/page/paragraph would be magic.
- fudged71 2y agoAre there any benchmarks to compare these online research agents? There’s so many to choose from now but it’s hard to compare them
- behnamoh 2y agoIt was about time someone made an alternative to Perplexity.
- jon309 2y agoSuper cool! I would love if we could make this serverless and easily deployable with CDK or Terraform. Maybe I’ll take that up as a side project, who knows!
- spdustin 2y agoI want to like it. But not supporting deployments and closing tickets submitted by people who are trying to get it running in their homelab turned me right off. The configuration shouldn't be that fragile.
- sc077y 2y agoVery interesting. I'm building a RAG chatbot and I haven't done the inline citations yet, I honestly thought it was a lot more complicated then just telling the llms to cite with a number and then have numbers next the sources. I did something to that extent as kind of a joke and it worked but the llm didn't always listen. I thought either post processing (checking cosine distance between sentences and retrieved chunks) or function calling would be the way to go.