Alternatives to iAsk.ai
A free AI answer engine that replies to natural-language questions with cited answers. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
iAsk.ai
A free AI answer engine that replies to natural-language questions with cited answers.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as iAsk.ai.
Perplexity
An AI answer engine that searches the web and replies with cited sources.
Perplexity searches the web with cited answers, keeps context for follow-ups and offers a choice of models, but advanced features need a paid tier and it runs on web only.
Felo
A multilingual AI search tool that answers questions and creates slides, mind maps and documents.
Felo is a freemium multilingual AI search tool with a browser extension that also turns research into slides, mind maps and documents.
Kagi
A paid, ad-free web search engine with anti-tracking, result customization and an AI assistant.
Kagi is a paid, ad-free search engine with an AI assistant grounded in results, Android and iOS apps, and per-site result customization.
Brave Search
A private web search engine built on its own independent index, with optional AI answers.
Brave Search is a free private search engine on its own independent index, with optional AI answers and Goggles for custom ranking, but no iOS app listed.
Metaso AI Search
A Chinese AI search engine that gives ad-free, structured answers, with file upload and slide generation.
Metaso AI Search is a free, ad-free Chinese answer engine giving structured answers with file upload and slide generation, with an interface in Chinese only.
Scira
An open-source, minimalist AI search engine that finds information on the web and cites its sources.
Scira is an open-source, self-hostable AI search engine with cited answers and a minimal interface, needing your own AI model and search API keys.
Vane (formerly Perplexica)
Self-hosted, privacy-focused AI search engine with cited answers.
Vane, formerly Perplexica, is an MIT-licensed, self-hosted AI search engine with cited answers that can run private searches with local Ollama models.
Morphic
An open-source AI search engine with a generative interface that you can host yourself.
Morphic is an open-source AI search engine with a generative answer interface, self-hosted through Docker Compose with your own AI and search providers.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Consensus
An AI search engine for peer-reviewed literature that gives evidence-based answers drawn from papers.
Tencent Yuanbao
Tencent's Chinese-language AI assistant for chat, search and writing, available on the web and as apps.
Knowt
A study app for flashcards, notes, quizzes and exam prep, with AI tools that summarize lectures.
You.com
A set of web search APIs that return search results, page contents and grounded answers for AI agents.
Semantic Scholar
A free, AI-powered search engine for scientific literature covering papers from all fields of science.
