perplexity-mcp

Provides an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes a single web-search tool backed by Perplexity AI’s API, intended for use with Claude Desktop (and similar MCP clients).

Evaluated Mar 30, 2026 (21d ago)

Repo ↗ Ai Ml mcp model-context-protocol web-search perplexity anthropic claude-desktop python api

⚙ Agent Friendliness

/ 100

Can an agent use this?

🔒 Security

/ 100

Is it safe for agents?

⚡ Reliability

/ 100

Does it work consistently?

Score Breakdown

⚙ Agent Friendliness

MCP Quality

Documentation

Error Messages

Auth Simplicity

Rate Limits

🔒 Security

TLS Enforcement

Auth Strength

Scope Granularity

Dep. Hygiene

Secret Handling

Uses an API key provided via environment variables (better than hard-coding), but no mention of TLS settings, secret redaction, request logging behavior, scope minimization, or rate-limit/error handling guidance. Security posture is largely dependent on upstream Perplexity API and the MCP server implementation not shown here.

⚡ Reliability

Uptime/SLA

Version Stability

Breaking Changes

Error Recovery

Best When

You want a simple MCP tool for on-demand web search with a single query and optional recency window, integrated into an MCP-capable client.

Avoid When

You need strict guarantees around uptime, documented error codes/retry behavior, or detailed security controls beyond a single upstream API key.

Use Cases

• Web research and fact-finding via an MCP tool (search the web for recent information).
• Building agent workflows that need lightweight web search with optional recency (day/week/month/year).
• Prototyping assistants that need “search then summarize” using Perplexity as the search engine.

Not For

• High-volume/batch web crawling use cases.
• Use cases requiring enterprise-grade observability/SLA guarantees (not documented here).
• Requirements for fine-grained result filtering beyond the provided recency window.

Interface

REST API

GraphQL

gRPC

MCP Server

Yes

SDK

Webhooks

Authentication

Methods: API key via PERPLEXITY_API_KEY environment variable

OAuth: No Scopes: No

Authentication is performed by providing a Perplexity API key through environment variables in the MCP client/server configuration. No additional OAuth or scope model is described.

Pricing

Free tier: No

Requires CC: No

No Perplexity pricing details are included in the provided README; costs depend on Perplexity API usage.

Agent Metadata

Pagination

none

Idempotent

False

Retry Guidance

Not documented

Known Gotchas

⚠ Only one tool is exposed (perplexity_search_web) with limited parameters (query + optional recency).
⚠ Agents may assume pagination or structured filtering that is not described; results are returned as provided by Perplexity’s API without documented normalization.
⚠ Tool reliability will be bounded by upstream Perplexity API availability/rate limits (not documented here).

Alternatives

Use Perplexity’s API directly from your application/agent (without MCP). Use other MCP web-search servers (if available) that better match your reliability/security requirements. Implement a minimal MCP wrapper around a general web search provider (e.g., SerpAPI/Google CSE/Bing) if you need control over behavior.

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Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-03-30.