Kagi Search vs Scira vs Perplexity AI vs Liner
A side-by-side look at scores, pricing and features — with RECATOOLS' ASEAN-aware verdict for each.
Kagi Search
Paid search engine with AI features
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Perplexity AI
The answer engine that cites its sources on every live web query
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| RECATOOLS Score | 7.8 / 10 | 6.5 / 10 | 8.4 / 10 | 6.7 / 10 |
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| Value for money | ||||
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| ASEAN readiness | ||||
| API quality | ||||
| Pricing | Subscription | Open Source | Freemium | Freemium |
| Free tier | — | — | Unlimited basic searches with standard model | — |
| Paid from | — | — | $20/month (Pro); $200/month (Max, launched July 2025) | — |
| Has API | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Open source | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Free to use | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Users | — | — | 30M+ standalone monthly active users (100M+ across all products, 2026) | — |
| Founded | 2018 | — | 2022 | — |
| Maker | — | — | Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, Andy Konwinski | — |
| Verdict | Kagi is a subscription search engine that trades ads for a flat fee, and the result quality, lack of clutter, and customisation (site ranking, lenses, integrated AI answers) are genuinely a step above mainstream search f... |
Scira remains one of the cleanest open-source takes on cited AI search: AGPL-3.0 licensed, over 7,000 GitHub stars, self-hostable, and genuinely useful as a reference for anyone who wants to see how a Perplexity-style an... |
Perplexity remains the strongest citation-first answer engine: every query triggers a live web search and each sentence links to its sources, which makes verification fast in a way plain chatbots can't match. The free ti... |
Liner earns its keep on citation traceability — every claim links back to a specific line in a specific source, and Scholar mode narrows that source pool to academic literature with one-click APA/MLA/Chicago export. For... |
| Full review → | Full review → | Full review → | Full review → |
Comparisons cover up to 4 tools. Scores are RECATOOLS editorial assessments; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.