Scira
Open-source AI search with citations — now has a $15/mo Pro tier
Overview
Scira (formerly MiniPerplx) is an AGPL-3.0, self-hostable AI search engine that breaks questions into sub-tasks and grounds answers in live web sources with inline citations. Free tier: 150 searches/day. Pro ($15/mo) removes the cap and unlocks every supported model.
Pricing
Pricing shown for reference only. These figures reflect RECATOOLS research as of 12 Jul 2026 and may be out of date or incomplete. This is not financial or purchasing advice — always confirm the current price on the provider’s official website before making any decision.
- 150 searches/day
- 20 extreme searches/month
- Unlimited searches
- All AI models
- PDF document analysis
- Priority support
- Pooled weekly quota across premium models
- AI image generation
- Scira Agent mode
What you can produce with Scira
- AGPL-3.0 open-source, self-hostable codebase
- Inline citations grounded in live web search
- Agentic multi-step query planning
- Multi-model support (Grok, GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, Llama)
- Free tier: 150 searches/day + 20 extreme searches/month
- Pro tier: unlimited searches, PDF document analysis
ASEAN Perspective
Scira in Southeast Asia
ASEAN-region availability and pricing notes coming soon. Drop the editorial team a note via /contact/ if you can supply local context (Singapore/Malaysia/Indonesia/Thailand/Vietnam).
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 answer engine is built end to end. It's stuck around since its MiniPerplx days as largely a solo-developer project (Zaid Mukaddam).
What's changed: after ten months running entirely free, Scira introduced its first paid plan in mid-2026 — Pro at $15/month for unlimited searches and every model, Max at $60/month for heavier model quotas plus an agent mode and image generation. The free tier survives at 150 searches a day, which is generous. It's still a small operation depending on third-party model and search APIs underneath, so temper uptime and freshness expectations accordingly — this isn't a funded incumbent's SLA.
What people say
Scira doesn't show up on G2, Capterra or Trustpilot in any meaningful volume — this is a project with community traction rather than enterprise review-site presence. The clearest signal of adoption is on GitHub: over 7,000 stars and, per the project's own about page, around 100,000 monthly users, plus a mention on Vercel's blog (the project is built on the Vercel AI SDK) as a notable community project.
Independent AI-tool directories (AIChief, BestAITools, TinyStartups) are broadly positive, praising the minimalist interface and the fact that answers come back cited rather than as an unsourced wall of text — the core Perplexity-style pitch. Reviewers also point to genuine breadth of model choice (Grok, GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, Llama) as unusual for a project this size, and the AGPL license plus self-hosting option as a real differentiator versus closed competitors.
The bigger news in 2026 is monetization: Scira ran free for its first ten months before introducing Scira Pro. Per the team's own announcement, Pro is $15/month for unlimited searches, all AI models, PDF document analysis, and priority support — a straightforward, single-tier pitch. A second tier, Max, launched at $60/month with substantially higher weekly usage pools across premium models plus an image-generation feature and a "Scira Agent" mode for more autonomous multi-step tasks.
There isn't yet a substantial body of reviews evaluating the paid tiers specifically — most public commentary predates the Pro/Max launch and describes the free, open-source product. Anyone evaluating Scira today should weigh that the entity behind it is still small: a single named developer is the public face of the project, and while that's normal for open-source tools, it means support and roadmap pace will differ from a funded startup.
Summary of public user & expert reviews, compiled by RECATOOLS.
About this listing
This entry was compiled from publicly available data including Scira's official website, press releases, documentation, and reputable third-party publications. RECATOOLS is not affiliated with Scira unless explicitly stated.
Third-party AI tools update their pricing, features, availability, and policies frequently. Information here may be outdated by the time you read this — we make reasonable efforts to keep listings current, but cannot guarantee absolute accuracy.
For the latest details, please refer to Scira directly →
Spotted something out of date? Suggest an update →
Scira in the news
More in Research & Data
