Complexity

Complexity

Emil Ahlbäck and Hamed Mohammadpour · Coding · Marketing

Complexity is a free AI search engine that turns a question into a short, sourced answer and keeps the thread in a session you can reopen later.

Interface preview of Complexity

About Complexity

What Is Complexity

Complexity is a browser-based AI answer engine built by Emil Ahlbäck and Hamed Mohammadpour. You type a question, it searches the web, and it returns a compact written answer with its cited sources listed above the text.

The layout is spare by design. A left sidebar holds your sessions, the main panel holds the sources and the answer, and an input at the bottom takes follow-ups. Key phrases in the answer are tinted orange so you can see which parts map back to the sources.

It's a small independent project rather than a full research suite. There's no file upload, no workspace sharing, and no documented API. The About page credits Cohere as the model provider, and the source code sits on GitHub, where the repository describes itself as a Perplexity clone for searching the web.

That origin explains both the strengths and the ceiling. You get a free AI search tool without a sales funnel attached. You don't get the document analysis, team features, or model choice that larger platforms bundle.

Getting Started

  1. Open cplx.ai in any modern browser. Nothing to install.
  2. Type a question into the Ask anything box, or pick one of the trending topics on the home screen.
  3. Scan the sources row before you read the answer. Each card shows a thumbnail and a snippet from the page.
  4. Read the answer, then open any source card to check the original wording.
  5. Type a follow-up question at the bottom to keep digging, or click an older entry in the sidebar to return to that session.

Product Information

A quick look at Complexity's pricing, supported platforms, and performance.

Free PlanYes
Paid PlansN/A
PlatformWeb
DeveloperEmil Ahlbäck and Hamed Mohammadpour
CategoryCoding · Marketing
Release DateMar 2024
Latest UpdatedDec 2024
Website Visits6.2K
Website Global Rank3.1M
API AvailabilityN/A

Best for

The users, tasks, and scenarios where this tool fits best.

Users

  • Students and self-learners
  • Journalists and researchers doing first-pass checks
  • Casual users who want an answer without an app

Tasks

  • Getting up to speed on an unfamiliar story
  • Comparing two options
  • Tracing a claim back to a source
  • Following a thread across several questions

Scenarios

  • A five-minute gap before a meeting
  • Reading a breaking story with conflicting reports
  • A study session at a desk

Key features

Ask Anything Search Box

The home screen is a single input with the prompt Ask anything. Type a full question rather than keywords, since the engine is built to handle natural language. Answers stream in rather than appearing all at once, which makes longer responses feel quicker than they are.

Sources With Preview Cards

Before the answer, Complexity shows a row of source cards with a thumbnail, a headline, and a text snippet. The previews come from each page's metadata, so you can judge relevance without opening five tabs. Clicking a card takes you to the original article.

Grounded Answer Format

Answers are short paragraphs, not essays, with key entities and phrases highlighted in orange. The highlighting gives you a rough map of what the model pulled from the sources, and it makes scanning faster when you only need one fact.

Session History

Every search becomes a session in the left sidebar, labeled with your original question. Clicking one reloads the sources and the answer, so you can pick up a thread days later. It's closer to a reading list than a chat log, and that suits research better than an endless scroll.

Follow-Up Questions

A second input at the bottom of an answer takes follow-up questions. Because the session keeps its earlier sources in view, you can narrow a broad question step by step: what happened, who was involved, what changed since. The context stays put instead of resetting with every query.

Trending Topic Starters

The home screen lists a handful of trending queries, from tech news to weather and recipes. They work as icebreakers when you want to see how the tool handles a topic before trusting it with your own question. The mix is broad, which is a fair signal of the engine's general-purpose intent.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • No install and no visible paywall: the whole product is a web page you can open in a tab.
  • Sources appear before the answer, which makes it easy to spot a thin evidence base early.
  • Session history gives continuity that most free answer engines skip.
  • The interface is fast and uncluttered, with no ads or upsell panels in the way.
  • The code is public on GitHub, so technically minded users can inspect how answers are assembled.

Cons

  • Web only. There's no iOS or Android app, so phone users get the mobile browser layout and nothing more.
  • No file upload or document analysis, which rules out contract review, PDF summarization, and similar work.
  • No documented API, so developers can't wire the engine into their own tools.
  • The project moves slowly. The public repository's last code update was in December 2024, so don't expect new features on a short timeline.

Frequently asked questions

Yes. There's no pricing page and no paid tier listed on the site, and every feature described here is available from the main page. If a paid plan appears later, it will show up on cplx.ai first.

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