Best AI research and search tools in October 2026

Tools that search the web, read papers and documents for you, and answer with sources you can check. Below are the 18 that Raunak picked, in Radar's order, then the most popular of the other 496 in this category on Radar.

1. 1PerplexityAsk anything, get an answer written from the web with every source cited.Free plan
2. 2NotebookLMTurns your own documents into a notebook you can question, and a podcast about them.Free
3. 3ElicitFinds the papers on a question and pulls the findings out into a table.Free plan
4. 4ConsensusAnswers questions from peer-reviewed studies, and shows how far they agree.Free plan
5. 5Semantic ScholarAi2's search engine for scientific papers, with one-line summaries of each.Free
6. 6Kagi AssistantThe ad-free search engine's assistant: the big models, grounded in Kagi's results.Paid
7. 7You.comSearch and research agents that write up what they find, with citations.Free plan
8. 8SciSpaceReads papers with you: explains passages, compares studies and drafts literature reviews.Free plan
9. 9SciteShows how a paper has been cited, supported, disputed or just mentioned.Paid
10. 10ResearchRabbitMaps the papers around the ones you care about, and keeps you posted on new ones.Free
11. 11Connected PapersA visual graph of the papers related to any one you start from.Free plan
12. 12UndermindA research agent that reads hundreds of papers to find the ones that really answer you.Free plan
13. 13LinerAn AI search engine for students and researchers, with trustworthy sources.Free plan
14. 14FeloMultilingual AI search that can turn its answers into slides and mind maps.Free plan
15. 15ChatPDFUpload a PDF and ask it questions; answers point back to the page.Free plan
16. 16HumataAsk questions across long documents and get cited, page-linked answers.Free plan
17. 17Julius AIA data analyst you talk to: upload spreadsheets, get charts and answers.Free plan
18. 18Wolfram|AlphaComputes answers, maths, science, data, rather than searching for them.Free plan

Free to start: Perplexity, NotebookLM, Elicit all have a free plan or are free outright.

Popular open-source AI research and search tools on GitHub

By stars on GitHub.

1. ECCThe agent harness performance optimization system. Skills, instincts, memory, security, and research-first development for Claude Code,…★ 282,075
2. Agent-ReachGive your AI agent eyes to see the entire internet. Read & search Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, GitHub, Bilibili, XiaoHongShu, one CLI, zero…★ 98,580
3. meilisearchA lightning-fast search engine API bringing AI-powered hybrid search to your sites and applications.★ 59,589
4. academic-research-skillsAcademic Research Skills for Claude Code: research → write → review → revise → finalize★ 52,521
5. ai-job-searchThe job search that runs on your machine. AI job application framework built on Claude Code: evaluate postings, tailor CVs, write cover…★ 49,565
6. qlibQlib is an AI-oriented Quant investment platform that aims to use AI tech to empower Quant Research, from exploring ideas to implementing…★ 49,438
7. codebase-memory-mcpHigh-performance code intelligence MCP server. Indexes codebases into a persistent knowledge graph, average repo in milliseconds. 162…★ 46,748
8. LibreChatEnhanced ChatGPT Clone: Features Agents, MCP, Skills, DeepSeek, Anthropic, AWS, OpenAI, Responses API, Azure, Groq, o1, GPT-5, Mistral,…★ 45,859
9. rayRay is an AI compute engine. Ray consists of a core distributed runtime and a set of AI Libraries for accelerating ML workloads.★ 44,051
10. quivrAn open-source engine that turns continuous content streams into search and monitoring. Durable ingestion, hybrid search, alerts, and…★ 39,595

Apps to try in the browser, on Hugging Face Spaces

By likes on Hugging Face.

1. 📊MTEB LeaderboardEmbedding Leaderboard♥ 7,739
2. 🌎Open VLM LeaderboardVLMEvalKit Evaluation Results Collection♥ 1,030
3. 🧠Agent Memory LeaderboardUnified memory evaluation · Results expected August 12.♥ 979
4. 🔬Jev Decision IndexBenchmarks and news on various repros of TypeSafe's Jev♥ 709
5. 💬Agent LeaderboardRanking of LLMs for agentic tasks♥ 453
6. ♾Infinite Dataset HubSearch and save datasets generated with a LLM in real time♥ 296
7. 🥇MMLU-Pro LeaderboardMore advanced and challenging multi-task evaluation♥ 258
8. 🥇GIFT EvalGIFT-Eval: A Benchmark for General Time Series Forecasting♥ 245
9. 🏃Deepseek v3-0324 ResearchDeepseek v3-0324 + Real Time Deep Research♥ 239
10. 📝FineVision: Open Data is All You NeedA new open-source dataset for training VLMs♥ 236

Launched on Product Hunt

By upvotes on Product Hunt.

1. Sider 5.0: Deep Research with WisebaseMimic Human Research & Save Findings in AI Knowledge Base▲ 1,341
2. ActiAgentic keyboard for mobile commands and search▲ 795
3. Currents AIAI social media deep research 24/7▲ 762
4. PluraiVibe-train evals and guardrails tailored to your use case▲ 732
5. Claude Web SearchClaude can now search the web▲ 653
6. ChatGPT searchGet fast, timely answers with links to relevant web sources▲ 649
7. Perplexity LabsBring your projects to life faster than ever before▲ 622
8. OpenJobs AIWhere Dream Jobs Find You▲ 621
9. Tila AICreate, code, search + design AI content all in one canvas▲ 610
10. Stepfun Diligence CheckAI-powered search with agent-verified citations▲ 609