Morphic is an open-source AI-powered search engine that generates complete, cited answers rather than returning a simple list of links. Built by House of Zoox, it serves researchers, developers, students, and anyone who needs thorough, sourced information from across the web.
Key Features
- Generative Answers: Morphic understands natural language questions and produces comprehensive responses with inline citations, giving users direct access to synthesized information from multiple sources.
- Two Search Modes: Quick mode delivers fast answers for straightforward queries. Adaptive mode performs deeper, multi-step research for complex questions that require synthesis across multiple sources.
- Multi-Source Intelligence: The engine integrates with leading AI providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Ollama, and supports multiple search backends such as Tavily, SearXNG, Brave, and Exa for flexible information retrieval.
- File Upload: Users can upload documents and files for the AI to analyze and reference when generating answers, enabling document-based queries.
- Open Source: The entire codebase is available on GitHub under the Apache 2.0 license with over 8,900 stars. Users can inspect, modify, and contribute to the code.
- Self-Hosted Deployment: Docker Compose provides a complete setup including PostgreSQL, Redis, and SearXNG. One-click deployment is also available on Vercel.
Use Cases
- Deep Research: Researchers and professionals use Adaptive mode to explore topics in depth, gathering synthesized information from multiple sources without manual cross-referencing.
- Developer Tooling: Developers deploy Morphic privately using Docker, configure custom AI and search providers, and integrate it into internal knowledge management workflows.
- Everyday Search: General users can leverage Quick mode for fast, cited answers to everyday questions through a clean, chat-like interface.
Integrations
- AI Providers: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Generative AI, Ollama, Vercel AI Gateway, and any OpenAI-compatible provider.
- Search Providers: Tavily, SearXNG, Brave, and Exa for comprehensive web search coverage.
- Authentication: Supabase Auth with optional guest mode for anonymous usage without an account.
- Database: PostgreSQL for chat history and user data.
Deployment Options
- Docker: Official Docker images are available via GitHub Container Registry with a docker-compose.yml that starts PostgreSQL, Redis, SearXNG, and the Morphic application automatically without additional API keys.
- Vercel: One-click deployment from the Vercel template gallery for quick cloud hosting.
- Local Development: Bun-based local development server with hot reload for customization and feature development.
Privacy
- Self-hosted deployments give users complete control over their data with no dependency on external services beyond configured AI and search provider APIs.
- Chat history is stored in PostgreSQL and is fully manageable by the instance owner.
- The hosted version at chat.morphic.sh provides a privacy policy and terms of service for user data handling.
