Perplexity Sonar
Search-grounded LLM API — Sonar models with real-time web citations.
About
Perplexity Sonar (2024) is the search-grounded LLM API: models that search the web in real-time and cite sources — the API version of Perplexity's answer engine.
Commercial: usage-based (Sonar API). The grounded-generation API — for applications that need current information with citations (research assistants, news apps), Sonar is unique. Not a general LLM gateway; it's for search-augmented generation specifically.
What it can do
- • Real-time web search\n• Cited answers\n• Sonar models\n• OpenAI-compatible API\n• Grounded generation
Setup
- Sign up at https://perplexity.ai and get a Sonar API key.\n2. Use the OpenAI-compatible endpoint.\n3. Query with
sonarmodels for grounded answers.
Prerequisites
A Perplexity account; API credits.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 7/10
Scored 7/10 (metrics tier). Unique search-grounded API with real-time citations. Docked three points: (1) niche — not a general LLM; (2) Perplexity's business is consumer; (3) pricing for high volume. For citation-needed applications.
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 8.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 5.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 4.5/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 7.0/10
- · provider-tier estimate — thinner evidence (no public adoption metric)
- · unique search-grounded; real-time citations
- · no release date — neutral maintenance score
- · manual review: niche; consumer business; license: proprietary — usage-based Sonar API
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.