Compare AI tools

	Perplexity S	Cursor S	Claude Agent SDK S	Fathom S
Tagline	AI search done right. Cited answers, not chat theater.	VS Code fork that made AI coding actually work.	Anthropic's SDK for building your own agents on Claude.	Meeting notes, free forever for individuals.
Category	Research	Coding	Agents	Meetings
Pricing	Free + $20/mo Pro	Free + $20/mo Pro + $40/mo Business	API usage + SDK is free	Free for individuals + $15-$29/user/mo teams
Best for	Replacing Google for any question where you want a cited answer in seconds.	Developers. Non-developers who want to ship working code.	Developers building custom agents for their own company/product.	Solo operators, freelancers, small teams on a budget.
Strengths	Sources every claim Fast, current answers Pro Search runs multi-step research Spaces for persistent context	Tab completion feels like mind-reading Composer for multi-file edits Runs Claude, GPT, Gemini — you pick	Production-grade agent primitives Built on Claude (best reasoning) Full control — build exactly what you need	Unlimited free tier for solo use Strong summaries + action items Works in Zoom, Meet, Teams
Weaknesses	Not a general chatbot Answers can be shallow on complex topics	Can feel overwhelming for non-coders Expensive at scale	Developer-only You build the UI	Bot-joining model Team features gated
Kai's verdict	S-tier for search. I use it before Google now. If you're still Googling everything, try this for a week.	S-tier for coding. If you write code of any kind, this pays back the $20 in a day.	S-tier for builders. The right primitives. What Kai is built on under the hood.	S-tier for solo + free. The best free option, hands down.
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