What is Fyin used for?

Fyin is an open-source, locally runnable alternative to Perplexity AI that searches the web, scrapes pages and generates answers with Ollama or OpenAI. It is a good fit for privacy-minded users wanting local AI search, developers experimenting with retrieval-augmented answers and self-hosters replacing Perplexity AI.

Yes. Fyin is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at shadowfax92/Fyin and is written mainly in Rust.

Yes. Fyin is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Fyin?

Yes. Fyin can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is Fyin an alternative to?

Fyin is an open-source alternative to Perplexity. Other open-source alternatives to Perplexity include Farfalle, Vane and Khoj.

Is Fyin actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Fyin was on 9 October 2024. The project has 235 stars on GitHub.

Fyin: open-source alternative to Perplexity

About Fyin

Fyin is an open-source answer engine written in Rust, intended as an alternative to Perplexity AI that you can run on your own machine. Its stated motivation is a tool that runs locally, is open source, and delivers answers quickly. It is released under the AGPL-3.0 licence.

It can use a local model through Ollama or the OpenAI API, and it keeps a local vector database for fast search. Searching, scraping and answering run in parallel for speed, and websites are scraped locally. The number of search results to parse is configurable. For web search it needs a Bing API key, or the URL of a SearXNG or DuckDuckGo endpoint.

Fyin is run from the command line, either with cargo or in a Docker container built from the repository, with settings supplied through an environment file. The project lists a hosted version and a simple website as future ideas rather than existing features, so it is mainly for people who prefer to self-host their search assistant.

Key features

Runs locally with Ollama models
Optional OpenAI API backend
Local vector database for search
Parallel searching, scraping and answering
Configurable number of search results
Local website scraping
Docker container support

Good fit for

→Privacy-minded users wanting local AI search
→Developers experimenting with retrieval-augmented answers
→Self-hosters replacing Perplexity AI

Built with: Rust
Tags: ai-search; rust; ollama; self-hosted; rag; perplexity-alternative

Fyin: questions and answers

What is Fyin used for?: Fyin is an open-source, locally runnable alternative to Perplexity AI that searches the web, scrapes pages and generates answers with Ollama or OpenAI. It is a good fit for privacy-minded users wanting local AI search, developers experimenting with retrieval-augmented answers and self-hosters replacing Perplexity AI.
Is Fyin open source?: Yes. Fyin is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at shadowfax92/Fyin and is written mainly in Rust.
Is Fyin free?: Yes. Fyin is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Fyin?: Yes. Fyin can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is Fyin an alternative to?: Fyin is an open-source alternative to Perplexity. Other open-source alternatives to Perplexity include Farfalle, Vane and Khoj.
Is Fyin actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Fyin was on 9 October 2024. The project has 235 stars on GitHub.