Building a Local Perplexity Alternative with Perplexica, Ollama, and SearXNG
You’ve probably heard of Perplexity, the AI search engine that’s been making waves. Compared to traditional searching, it provides concise, synthesized answers to queries rather than just a list of links to boost efficiency and productivity. However, Perplexity’s unique capability comes with a price tag — $20 a month for the Pro Search, with free users limited to just 5 pro searches a day.
But what if you could build something similar on your own hardware, without monthly fees or usage limits? In this guide, we’ll walk you through the process of creating your local Perplexity alternative using Terminus, an open-source, self-hosted operating system based on Kubernetes, along with other powerful open-source AI tools.
Before we dive into our self-hosted solution, let’s briefly explore how Perplexity works. Note that this is a simplified version, the actual workflow is much more sophisticated.
Compared to regular installation methods, Terminus provides a more streamlined, user-friendly experience for users looking to self-host applications:
