ChatGPT
OpenAI's assistant, which can search the web during a chat and show links to the pages behind its answer.
- Shows sources with answers
- AI-written answers
- Free to use or free plan
About Perplexity
Answer engine that searches the web for each question and writes a reply with numbered links to the pages it used.
Perplexity is an answer engine. You type a question, it runs web searches, reads a set of pages and writes a short answer with numbered citations that link to each source. You can ask follow-up questions in the same thread, and the sources stay attached to each reply.
It suits research questions where you want a summary and the trail behind it: comparing products, catching up on a topic, or finding the original document behind a claim. There is a free tier and paid plans with more advanced models and higher limits, and a developer API for adding its search answers to other apps.
Treat the answer as a starting point. Open the cited pages for anything that matters, check that each claim appears in the source it is attached to, and look at the dates, since a search can return an older page that has since been corrected.
Details
Shows sources with answers
YesAI-written answers
YesFree to use or free plan
YesDeveloper API
YesMobile app
Yes
Listing written by DolphinIndex, checked 2026-11-03. Report a correction or request removal. Back to answer engines.