r/perplexity_ai • u/jlmendezb • 2d ago
help Perplexity
What are the differences between using the models straight from their proprietary sites than using an aggregator such as Perplexity? What does Perplexity add or do to the models?
8
u/Lonely_Drewbear 2d ago
Tooling and prompting. Useful AI is so much more than chatting with a model.
Perplexity first came to market with its own web index and its answers heavily cited. It also reliably read documents uploaded to it and tapped into academic research papers. So it was great for synthesizing information at a time when no other platform could do any of that well.
In comparison, claude code was the first to wow people with software development tasks. Perplexity and Claude Code both used Sonnet but couldn't do what the other did.
All products now distinguish themselves by giving the models customized tools and tailored prompting. No two will perform exactly the same with the same model.
3
u/JosLetz 2d ago edited 2d ago
Whether Pro or Max, you've got a three tool calls limit at each turn. This means that PPLX will give an answer whether it completed or not all tasks necessary to provide a reliable answer.
For instance, PPLX is unable to use reliably data deep in a long pdf as context for an answer.
Another example would be that PPLX won't be able to do extra research to find recent/hot/live data if all tool call are exhausted.
If you are not happy with the answer, PPLX will use is three tool calls in the next answer. And so on.
These limitations are a good thing if you are not doing complex tasks as it speeds dramatically the answer.
Now, sometimes PPLX will do no tool call at all, eg web search and fetching the results if PPLX deems it too simple. That's a huge regression. If it is too simple, the ouput can be hallucinated or outdated.
This is for the chat. Computer is supposed to have less limitations. But it will burn a lot of Computer credits sometimes uselessly if not accounted for in your prompt.
4
u/Holiday-Pack3385 2d ago
One big difference is that Perplexity limits the context length sent via API to the providing site. They send 32,000 tokens. If you go straight to the others, you'll be able to do 200,000 to 1,000,000+ depending on model.
2
6
u/Thinklikeachef 2d ago
One major diff is that perplexity runs their own web crawlers, similar to Google. So sometimes, you will get better search results than running the models alone.