Yes — Perplexity is purpose-built for research. It cites real sources, provides links, and focuses on factual accuracy. ChatGPT is more general-purpose and better for creative tasks, coding, and conversation.
For many research tasks, yes. Perplexity gives direct answers with citations rather than a list of links. For shopping, local results, and image search, Google is still superior.
Yes — Perplexity has a capable free tier. Perplexity Pro ($20/mo) unlocks GPT-4o, Claude 3.7, and higher query limits.