Head to head · Chat & research · updated Oct 26, 2026
Perplexity vs Grok
Perplexity scores 79 to Grok's 76 on public evidence for deep research & AI search, and they rank #3 and #4 there. Both are free to start. Numbers below are the same public signals the ranking uses, recomputed nightly — nothing here is sponsored.
Perplexity
An answer engine that searches the web and returns a synthesized reply with inline citations.
+ Every answer comes with clickable sources, and Pro lets you switch between frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google.
− Citations sometimes do not actually support the sentence they are attached to, so you still have to click through for anything important.
Grok
xAI's assistant with live access to X posts, DeepSearch research mode and a looser content policy.
+ Pulls real-time posts from X into answers, which makes it the fastest way to research breaking news and public sentiment.
− Fewer guardrails and a reliance on X content mean more unverified claims and off-color outputs than other assistants.
Side by side
public evidence| Perplexity | Grok | |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence score / 100 | 79 | 76 |
| GitHub stars | closed source | closed source |
| Hacker News stories, 30d | 22 | 1 |
| Release-feed mentions, 30d | 11 | 18 |
| Last activity | 0 days ago | 0 days ago |
| Pricing | Free tier · Pro $20/mo | Free tier · SuperGrok $30/mo; also bundled with X Premium+ |
| Platforms | web, mac, windows, ios, android, api, chrome-extension | web, ios, android, api |
| Maker | Perplexity AI | xAI |
Which one?
Pick Perplexity if
- you want the stronger public evidence (79 vs 76)
- you need it on chrome-extension, mac, windows
Best for cited answers for quick research.
Pick Grok if
Pulls real-time posts from X into answers, which makes it the fastest way to research breaking news and public sentiment.
Best for real-time news and X sentiment.