What is Farfalle used for?

Farfalle is a free, Apache-licensed, self-hostable AI search engine that answers questions using local or cloud LLMs, positioned as an open alternative to Perplexity. It is a good fit for self-hosted AI search without vendor lock-in and private search using local LLMs.

Is Farfalle open source?

Yes. Farfalle is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at rashadphz/farfalle and is written mainly in TypeScript.

Yes. Farfalle is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.

Can I self-host Farfalle?

Yes. Farfalle can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Farfalle an alternative to?

Farfalle is an open-source alternative to Perplexity and You.com. Other open-source alternatives to Perplexity include Vane, Scira and Morphic.

Is Farfalle actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Farfalle was on 27 September 2024. The project has 3.5k stars on GitHub.

Farfalle: open-source alternative to Perplexity, You.com

About Farfalle

Farfalle is an open-source AI-powered search engine, described by its creator as a Perplexity clone, that lets you search the web and get synthesized answers. It is aimed at developers and privacy-minded users who want to self-host this kind of search experience and choose their own model provider rather than depend on a closed commercial service.

It supports local models through Ollama, such as Llama 3, Mistral, Gemma and Phi-3, custom models through LiteLLM, and cloud models including Groq-hosted Llama 3 and OpenAI's GPT-4o. Search results can come from multiple providers, including Tavily, SearXNG, Serper or Bing, and the project supports chat history, an agent mode that plans and executes a search for better results, and expert search.

The stack uses Next.js for the frontend and FastAPI for the backend, with Redis for rate limiting and shadcn/ui components. Running it locally requires Docker and, for local models, Ollama; API keys for search and cloud model providers are optional depending on which features are used. Farfalle is written in TypeScript and released under the Apache-2.0 license, with a cloud-model-only live demo available.

Key features

AI-generated answers from web search
Local LLM support via Ollama
Multiple search providers (Tavily, SearXNG, Serper, Bing)
Agent mode that plans multi-step searches
Chat history and expert search modes
Docker-based self-hosted deployment

Good fit for

→Self-hosted AI search without vendor lock-in
→Private search using local LLMs

Built with: TypeScript; FastAPI; Next.js; React; Tailwind CSS
Tags: ai-search; perplexity-alternative; self-hosted; llm; ollama; rag; nextjs; search-engine

Farfalle: questions and answers

What is Farfalle used for?: Farfalle is a free, Apache-licensed, self-hostable AI search engine that answers questions using local or cloud LLMs, positioned as an open alternative to Perplexity. It is a good fit for self-hosted AI search without vendor lock-in and private search using local LLMs.
Is Farfalle open source?: Yes. Farfalle is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at rashadphz/farfalle and is written mainly in TypeScript.
Is Farfalle free?: Yes. Farfalle is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.
Can I self-host Farfalle?: Yes. Farfalle can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Farfalle an alternative to?: Farfalle is an open-source alternative to Perplexity and You.com. Other open-source alternatives to Perplexity include Vane, Scira and Morphic.
Is Farfalle actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Farfalle was on 27 September 2024. The project has 3.5k stars on GitHub.