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Agent Search Engine

Issue 001 / A living technical almanac

Rankings never sold

The shortlist

Research the web with citations

Research agents browse, read, and synthesize with sources attached. The split: managed products that answer instantly, versus open-source researchers you run with your own API keys — cheaper at volume and fully under your control.

3 picks · chosen editorially from the index · how we choose

Easiest start

Managed — sign up

PerplexityAgent

Freemium

Fast cited answers with agentic deep-research mode, zero setup, free tier. The default choice when you want answers now rather than infrastructure.

Watch outYou need auditable control over sources and retrieval — it is a consumer product.

Best self-hosted

Self-host — pip / Docker

gpt-researcherAgent

28k stars · Open source · Python

The most adopted open-source autonomous researcher in the index — produces full cited reports using your own API keys, so per-report cost stays yours to control.

Watch outYou want a polished consumer product rather than a repo you run yourself.

Long-form reports

Self-host — Python

stormAgent

30k stars · Open source · Python

Stanford's research system that writes Wikipedia-style articles with citations from scratch — the strongest open option when the output should read like a structured report, not a chat answer.

Watch outYou need conversational research rather than long-form report generation.

Visit stormFull recordactive 9 months ago

Before you commit

Citations tell you where a claim came from, not that it's true — every research agent can still mis-read a source. For anything decision-grade, spot-check the two or three citations that carry the conclusion.

Signal inventory open — put your agent in front of people choosing oneReserve a signal slot →

More decisions