Scira
Open-source AI search with citations, plus paid Pro and Max plans
Overview
Scira (formerly MiniPerplx) is an AI search engine that plans multi-step queries and answers from live web sources with inline citations. The hosted service gives 3 free searches a day, with Pro at $15 a month and Max at $60; the AGPL-3.0 code is self-hostable but lags the hosted product.
Pricing
Pricing shown for reference only. These figures reflect RECATOOLS research as of 1 Oct 2026 and may be out of date or incomplete.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.
- Basic models
- 13 search modes
- Search history
- Unlimited searches on base models
- Sonnet 4.6 150/mo, Opus 4.7 30/mo
- PDF analysis, voice, memory
- 100+ MCP Apps
- Weekly pools for Claude, Gemini 3.1 Pro, Qwen 3.7 Max and GPT
- AI image generation
- Scira Agent (limited preview)
What you can produce with Scira
- AGPL-3.0 open-source, self-hostable codebase (lags the hosted product)
- Inline citations grounded in live web search
- Agentic multi-step query planning
- Up to 18 search modes incl. X, Reddit, academic, GitHub, stocks
- Scouts, skills and an MCP Apps marketplace (Scira 2.0)
- Web, iOS and command-line clients
Scira remains one of the cleanest open-source takes on cited AI search, and a useful reference for anyone studying how a Perplexity-style answer engine is built — though the public repository has not seen a code change since March 2026, so the self-hosted version is behind. The hosted service has grown fast, with Scira 2.0 adding scheduled scouts, skills and more than 100 MCP integrations, but it has also tightened: the free tier is down to three searches a day. Pro at $15 a month gives unlimited searches on base models with caps on premium Claude models, and Max at $60 opens Gemini, Qwen and more. It is still essentially a one-developer project resting on third-party model and search APIs, with non-refundable fees, so temper uptime expectations. Good value for heavy researchers who like its source modes; try the free searches first.
What we found
Scira, which started as MiniPerplx, is an AI search engine that breaks a question into steps, searches the live web and answers with inline citations. It is largely the work of one developer, Zaid Mukaddam, based in Mumbai, and its code is published under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Scira says more than 100,000 people use it and it has answered five million searches. It offers 13 search modes on the free plan and 18 on paid plans, covering sources such as X, Reddit, academic papers, GitHub, YouTube, stock data and prediction markets, with web search supplied by third-party providers.
The hosted product has moved quickly. Scira 2.0, released in September 2026, brought a redesign, reusable "skills", scheduled "scouts" that watch topics, and an Apps marketplace of more than 100 MCP integrations; an iPhone app, a command-line tool and a sandboxed research agent arrived earlier in the year. The open-source repository has not kept pace: its last code change was in March 2026, and its model list predates what the hosted service offers. Self-hosting still works with your own API keys, but you get an older Scira.
The free tier is much smaller than it was. Free users now get three searches a day with basic models, down from 150, and the monthly allowance of "extreme" deep searches is gone. Pro, which Scira has sold since at least July 2025, costs $15 a month ($9 with a student email) for unlimited searches across its base models, with monthly caps on premium ones — 150 Sonnet 4.6 and 30 Opus 4.7 queries — plus PDF analysis, voice, memory and the Apps marketplace. Gemini 3.1 Pro and Qwen 3.7 Max are not included on Pro. Max, $60 a month, adds weekly pools for premium Claude, Gemini, Qwen and GPT models, image generation and an agent in limited preview. Fees are non-refundable, and Indian pricing is ₹1,390 and ₹5,990.
As a small operation depending on third-party model and search APIs, it offers no enterprise uptime guarantees.
Compiled by RECATOOLS from public sources: vendor documentation and pricing, code repositories and published reporting.
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.
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