Perplexity

“Terrible support and lost access

Pros

Being able to switch models in the middle of a chat is useful and the app is quick when it comes to answering questions or helping with research. Overall it works fairly well when you just need fast information.

Cons

The customer support is unbelievably bad. I joined a friend's enterprise plan for a couple of months to test it and after leaving, all of my chats and spaces vanished like I was starting over with a brand-new account. On top of that, my personal Pro account stopped working too even though I still have around 7 months left on the subscription. I contacted enterprise support and only got an automated chatbot reply with generic steps to follow which I did and then nothing for 2 weeks. I followed up and got the same bot response saying someone would reply when possible, followed by more silence. After another week, I reached out to their regular support team, explained everything and once again the AI told me it had escalated the issue and that I'd hear back within 2 days. It has now been more than a week since then. At first I wondered whether this was just my case but after looking online, it's clear their support really is this bad and plenty of other people have had the same experience. Long story short, this is easily the worst customer support I've dealt with in a very long time. If this were my company, I'd be embarrassed. At this point I'm done using Perplexity which is disappointing because I had been looking forward to trying the new computer feature but I'll be using Manus instead.

“Helpful for everyday tasks

Pros

Whenever I need to switch off my brain and handle really routine tasks, this is nice to use. With just a bit of guidance, it does the job really well.

Cons

The nonstop censorship makes it feel as if chats that are supposed to be private might not actually be private. That part is pretty unsettling and honestly a little scary.

“useful web research companion

Pros

Using Perplexity Pro has been really useful for both studying and work. It can search the web, cite sources and explain things in simple language which saves me from jumping between a bunch of tabs. I also appreciate being able to upload files and get summaries or even code from them.

Cons

At times the answers sound very confident but still contain small mistakes so I end up checking the source links myself anyway. The platform also has a lot of modes and settings which took some time to understand. And after using the Pro version, the free version now feels pretty limited.