Scira
Open-source AI search engine — build your own Perplexity.
About
Scira (zaidmukaddam/scira, AGPL-3.0, ~11.9k stars) is the open-source AI search engine: a Perplexity-style answer engine you can self-host, with multiple search providers and model backends.
License note: AGPL-3.0 is copyleft — if you host it as a service, you must share your source. Fine for self-hosting and learning; think twice before building a commercial product on it.
What it can do
- AI answer engine
- Multiple search providers
- Self-hostable
- AGPL-3.0 open source
- Perplexity-style UX
Setup
- Clone zaidmukaddam/scira.
- Add search provider + model API keys.
bun install && bun dev(per README).- Note the AGPL obligations if you host it publicly.
Prerequisites
Node/Bun; search + model API keys.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (verified tier). ~11.9k stars, actively maintained, the reference open-source AI search. Docked for AGPL copyleft (flagged) and no release cadence. Verified tier.
★ 11,895 GitHub stars
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 7.7/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 6.8/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 9.4/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 7.0/10
- · 11,895 GitHub stars (log-scaled vs catalog peers)
- · last push 62d ago; 0 releases/12mo; 27 open issues
- · manual review: open-source AI search engine; AGPL copyleft is a real consideration for hosted use; license: AGPL-3.0 (copyleft — hosting it as a service triggers source-sharing)
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.