[HN Gopher] Perplexica: Open-source Perplexity alternative
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Perplexica: Open-source Perplexity alternative
Author : sean_pedersen
Score : 313 points
Date : 2024-05-24 02:49 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| hackernewds wrote:
| How is this related to Perplexity?
| asadm wrote:
| It's open source version of Perplexity.ai
| viraptor wrote:
| Does the first paragraph of the page answer the question?
| allanrbo wrote:
| First 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 wrote:
| Same here, here is a list of public instances[1]. Docs link
| [2].
|
| [1] https://searx.space/
|
| [2] https://docs.searxng.org/
| KRAKRISMOTT wrote:
| Can 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 wrote:
| Oh 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 wrote:
| Looks similar to what I've been using for a few weeks
| https://github.com/miurla/morphic
| number6 wrote:
| Is it worth the install or is it just a gimmick?
| hackerlight wrote:
| No need.to install, go to www.morphic.sh
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| just tried it; sweet!
| pants2 wrote:
| I 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!
| tremarley wrote:
| Release it please
| mdp2021 wrote:
| An article would be nice...
| yosito wrote:
| It 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 wrote:
| Logseq user here with an upvote.
| anewhnaccount2 wrote:
| I guess it didn't eat your notes yet:
| https://discuss.logseq.com/t/data-loss-happened-twice-i-
| cant...
| jddj wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| Logseq's git auto-commit is a great insurance policy and
| should make recovery a breeze.
| eichin wrote:
| Ah, 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 wrote:
| I 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.
| nine_k wrote:
| In this regard,maybe JetBrains should dust off Omea [1] and add
| an appropriate LLM to it.
|
| [1]: https://www.jetbrains.com/omea/
| webprofusion wrote:
| When 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 wrote:
| +1
| michelsedgh wrote:
| Actually 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 wrote:
| Isn't Yuzu a good counter example?
| freehorse wrote:
| It does not sound relevant to me, because that was a case
| of "video game piracy". It was not about the name per se.
| theturtletalks wrote:
| Yuzu'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 wrote:
| Huh? 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.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Wonder how Gitlab survived next to Github then. To first
| approximation, the names are the same, and so are the
| products...
| mihaic wrote:
| Both of these are built on top of git, an open source
| project, so Gitlab is not a riff on Github. Perplexica on
| the other hand seems like a direct reference to Perplexity,
| not on the concept of being perplexed by something.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Isn't "Perplexity" itself a direct reference to a machine
| learning term that, among other things, is very relevant
| to large language models, on top of which Perplexity is
| built?
| IanCal wrote:
| That's a far more tenuous link than "gitlab hosts git
| repos".
| wrasee wrote:
| Yet the way git is used is still similar. Both lead with
| 'git' in their name, both append a pithy three letter
| suffix to 'git' that both describe some kind of space
| where people meet to do stuff. Surely that's more than
| just coincidence.
| jakozaur wrote:
| The dispute happens only if one party owns the trademark
| and sends a Cease & Desist letter. Different companies have
| different approaches to aggression here.
|
| Second, it has to prove that it confuses customers (e.g. if
| you pick ten end users and do tests if they find that
| confusing). Maybe a sophisticated tech audience is better
| at finding differences than the general public.
| digi59404 wrote:
| Git is a registered trademark of neither GitLab or GitHub.
| Both GitLab and GitHub have negotiated the usage of the Git
| trademark. Provided they follow the rules set out for them,
| they can continue to use it.
|
| As an employee of one of them I personally bought the
| git.new domain. I paid a good chunk for it and was going to
| build a new project template builder on it. I got.. talked
| too by legal about this. Because as an employee it actually
| violated one of those rules.
|
| So that's the how, and why I know.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| More that they should not have called it Windowz
| rcxdude wrote:
| You can reference the competitor, but you don't want there to
| be any risk that a moron in a hurry might confuse your
| product with theirs, else you're in for a trademark
| violation.
| michelsedgh wrote:
| Thank 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 wrote:
| This 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
| sanjayk0508 wrote:
| There's been many other good alternative of perplexica before
| michelsedgh wrote:
| Care to share which ones?
| telepathy wrote:
| https://repocloud.io/results/?category=saas_Perplexity
| bravura wrote:
| Why doesn't this site have any way to contact the
| maintainer?
|
| Even their TOS makes it seem like they aren't an actual
| company (the counterparty is "RepoCloud.io")
| jakozaur wrote:
| Sorry 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
|
| 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 wrote:
| Perplexity 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
| marcinzm wrote:
| That doesn't mean in any way that it can't be a legal
| trademark.
| calny wrote:
| I'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!
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Not how the law works. I'm not certain Perplexity has
| trademarked their name but the question of whether it's an
| information theory term or not wouldn't prevent them from
| doing so, nor would it prevent them from defending that
| trademark.
|
| Engineer-y people trying to interpret law has to be one of
| the most reliably silly things on HN.
| michael-ax wrote:
| Have you ever tried to trademark a random noun?
| marcinzm wrote:
| No but lots of other people have:
| https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-results
|
| Feel free to release a computer named Apple to prove me
| wrong.
| michael-ax wrote:
| Alright, read up on domains, then try arguing that
| 'perplexity' as company and noun are in different spaces!
| I grant you that if they were, the company could
| trademark that noun. But it seems clear that Perplexity
| named itself after the noun and by so doing gave up the
| option of trademarking its company name.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _Engineer-y people trying to interpret law_
|
| It must be out of how perplexing apparent hiatus between
| legitimacy and positive law can be.
| michael-ax wrote:
| Which is why Trademarks are a non-issue here. My bet is that
| the Devs understood that.
| chakintosh wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| Some people want to self-host this technology. AI is very
| powerful, and not everyone wants that to be controlled by large
| corporations or institutions.
| rvz wrote:
| Both 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/perplexi...
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I Encartered the concept of verbs and I agree.
| rors wrote:
| Perplexity 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
|
| I agree that it doesn't transfer out of that specialised
| domain.
| Aloisius wrote:
| Eh. Still a weird name given one generally wants to reduce
| perplexity.
|
| Might as well call it Uncertainty.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| 'Perplexity' is "through the complexity".
| tcsenpai wrote:
| I was waiting for this moment since months. Sir, you are the GOAT
| dcreater wrote:
| Anyone 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
| rashadphil wrote:
| Here is another open-source alternative:
| https://github.com/rashadphz/farfalle (Disclaimer: I made it)
| asadalt wrote:
| which one is better
| octobus2021 wrote:
| I 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.
| jahewson wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| What 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.
| nilkn wrote:
| Even after the release of GPT4o, Perplexity Pro with Claude 3
| Opus is by far my most used LLM application. For me, the
| writing quality of Claude 3 combined with a wider variety of
| information sources makes it far surpass raw ChatGPT for most
| non-creative/non-interactive tasks.
| bufo wrote:
| I recommend Phind.com, it's been much better and faster for
| me than Perplexity Pro. I typically use their custom 70B
| model but you can also use GPT4 o or Turbo, or Claude 3 Opus.
| fudged71 wrote:
| Are 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 wrote:
| It was about time someone made an alternative to Perplexity.
| jon309 wrote:
| Super 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!
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(page generated 2024-05-24 23:00 UTC)