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Perplexity APIFuse.jsMiniSearch
Quick read
- Free with no card: Fuse.js, MiniSearch.
| Field | Perplexity APIdocs.perplexity.ai | Fuse.jsfusejs.io | MiniSearchgithub.com |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Perplexity's search-grounded Sonar models exposed through an OpenAI-compatible chat API. Every response is generated against live web results and returns with citations. A separate Search API returns ranked web results with no generation at all, billed flat at $5 per 1,000 requests. | A zero-dependency fuzzy-search library using the Bitap algorithm — roughly 6.8kB gzipped for the basic build, 8.6kB for the full one. Searches arrays of JS objects in memory with typo tolerance, field weighting, nested keys and extended query operators. Runs in browsers, Node and Deno. | A dependency-free JavaScript full-text search engine that builds a real inverted index in memory, in the browser or in Node. Supports prefix search, fuzzy matching, field boosting, modern relevance ranking, auto-suggestion, and adding or removing documents at any time. The index serializes to JSON so it can be prebuilt. |
| Category | Search, vector & RAG | Search, vector & RAG | Search, vector & RAG |
| Cost tier | paid | free | free |
| Pricing | Sonar $1/M input and $1/M output tokens; Sonar Pro $3/M in, $15/M out; Sonar Reasoning Pro and Deep Research $2/M in, $8/M out. Request fee $5-$12 per 1K by search context size. Search API $5 per 1K requests with no token cost. | Free, Apache-2.0. No service, no account, no limits, no bill. | Free, MIT-licensed. No service or account. |
| Why builders pick it | One call replaces the whole search-then-summarize pipeline — you get a cited answer instead of building retrieval yourself. Drop-in for any code already using the OpenAI SDK. | When a few hundred to a few thousand items already sit in your app state — a command palette, a settings list, a filterable table — this is ten lines of code and no infrastructure. | The step up from Fuse.js when you have tens of thousands of records — a proper index instead of rescoring every item per keystroke, still with no backend and no bill. |
| Watch out for | You pay a per-request search fee on top of tokens, so real bills run well above the headline token rate. You cannot control which sources it grounds on. | It scores every item on every keystroke, so it degrades noticeably past roughly 10K records. Use MiniSearch or a real index above that. | The whole index ships to the client, so a large corpus means a large download. Prebuild and cache the serialized JSON rather than indexing on every page load. |
| How to wire it up | not logged | npm i fuse.js | npm i minisearch |
| Editor's pick | No | No | No |
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# Tool comparison — Perplexity API vs Fuse.js vs MiniSearch Source: Kbaise, a directory of tools that work with Lovable projects. Pick one and tell me why before writing any integration code. ## Perplexity API (perplexity-api) - URL: https://docs.perplexity.ai - Category: Search, vector & RAG - Cost: paid — Sonar $1/M input and $1/M output tokens; Sonar Pro $3/M in, $15/M out; Sonar Reasoning Pro and Deep Research $2/M in, $8/M out. Request fee $5-$12 per 1K by search context size. Search API $5 per 1K requests with no token cost. - What it is: Perplexity's search-grounded Sonar models exposed through an OpenAI-compatible chat API. Every response is generated against live web results and returns with citations. A separate Search API returns ranked web results with no generation at all, billed flat at $5 per 1,000 requests. - Why builders pick it: One call replaces the whole search-then-summarize pipeline — you get a cited answer instead of building retrieval yourself. Drop-in for any code already using the OpenAI SDK. - Trap: You pay a per-request search fee on top of tokens, so real bills run well above the headline token rate. You cannot control which sources it grounds on. - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/perplexity-api ## Fuse.js (fuse-js) - URL: https://www.fusejs.io - Category: Search, vector & RAG - Cost: free — Free, Apache-2.0. No service, no account, no limits, no bill. - What it is: A zero-dependency fuzzy-search library using the Bitap algorithm — roughly 6.8kB gzipped for the basic build, 8.6kB for the full one. Searches arrays of JS objects in memory with typo tolerance, field weighting, nested keys and extended query operators. Runs in browsers, Node and Deno. - Why builders pick it: When a few hundred to a few thousand items already sit in your app state — a command palette, a settings list, a filterable table — this is ten lines of code and no infrastructure. - Trap: It scores every item on every keystroke, so it degrades noticeably past roughly 10K records. Use MiniSearch or a real index above that. - Wiring: npm i fuse.js - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/fuse-js ## MiniSearch (minisearch) - URL: https://github.com/lucaong/minisearch - Category: Search, vector & RAG - Cost: free — Free, MIT-licensed. No service or account. - What it is: A dependency-free JavaScript full-text search engine that builds a real inverted index in memory, in the browser or in Node. Supports prefix search, fuzzy matching, field boosting, modern relevance ranking, auto-suggestion, and adding or removing documents at any time. The index serializes to JSON so it can be prebuilt. - Why builders pick it: The step up from Fuse.js when you have tens of thousands of records — a proper index instead of rescoring every item per keystroke, still with no backend and no bill. - Trap: The whole index ships to the client, so a large corpus means a large download. Prebuild and cache the serialized JSON rather than indexing on every page load. - Wiring: npm i minisearch - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/minisearch ## Quick read - Free with no card: Fuse.js, MiniSearch. ## Rules 1. Prefer the free tier when no budget was stated, and say what the ceiling is. 2. Read the full dossier before integrating. 3. Fetch /api/public/models before writing any AI model ID.
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