{"slug": "phind", "name": "Phind", "category": "ai", "category_name": "AI models and assistants", "description": "", "recommenders": 6, "commenters": 19, "warners": 8, "score": -0.489, "rising": -1.96, "first": "2025-12-03", "latest": "2026-06-01", "why": "I used Phind successfully about 2 years ago to make my way around an old codebase", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 2, "compare": 3, "warn": 8}, "spark": [0, 3, 2, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I used Phind successfully about 2 years ago to make my way around an old codebase", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": "phind.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.phind.com", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Phind"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 772393633, "item_id": 48274602, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48274602", "by": "dahuangf", "date": "2026-05-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For code: Kagi or phind.", "excerpt": "For code: Kagi or phind. For general: Perplexity. For privacy: Brave. I use Google only when I need to find a specific Reddit thread now, ironically.", "context": "", "use_case": "code search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore"}, {"id": 746771232, "item_id": 46673202, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46673202", "by": "BojanTomic", "date": "2026-01-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "A great tool will be missed.", "excerpt": "A great tool will be missed. I wrote an eulogy if someone wants to pay their last respects. https://intelligenttools.co/blog/improved-phind-shutdown-post", "context": "", "use_case": "AI search for developers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Phind.com Is Shutting Down"}, {"id": 745579456, "item_id": 46598716, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46598716", "by": "pu_pe", "date": "2026-01-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I really liked the product.", "excerpt": "I used Phind quite a bit about a year ago and thought they were actually very good. In comparison to Perplexity, for example, I thought results were simply much better. I guess at some point the approach of finetuning their own models could not scale, and using third-party APIs would just be prohibitive as well. Congratulations to the team though, for what it's worth I really liked the product.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Phind.com Is Shutting Down"}, {"id": 738301680, "item_id": 46143855, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46143855", "by": "slake", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is so cool.", "excerpt": "This is so cool. These are shareable I guess? I built this to give me recommendations of good non-fiction books to read... https://www.phind.com/search/i-want-to-find-out-d79b4dca-bac7-437c-9bed-3d3bc1f18007", "context": "", "use_case": "Book recommendation search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738297264, "item_id": 46143579, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46143579", "by": "johnsillings", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "this might replace chatGPT for me for learning stuff.", "excerpt": "i love this. had my doubts when i read the premise, but this might replace chatGPT for me for learning stuff.", "context": "", "use_case": "learning", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 739162896, "item_id": 46197681, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46197681", "by": "omani", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "you make phind worse and worse. unusable.", "excerpt": "too slow man. come on. you make phind worse and worse. unusable. no need to wait a minute for an answer. seriously, just use https://chat.mistral.ai/chat folks.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738329328, "item_id": 46145583, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46145583", "by": "fainpul", "date": "2025-12-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Didn't really work for me.", "excerpt": "Didn't really work for me. I asked it for something I hacked together myself in the past, so I have an idea of what I want, and I also know that resources like this exist on the internet. So it seemed like a fair test. Prompt: \"I want to build a V-plotter (carriage hanging from two points, connected by light chain or belts). How can I figure out the dimensions of the printable area that will have good print quality? ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738263824, "item_id": 46141489, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46141489", "by": "k__", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Phind felt like a different/worse service", "excerpt": "Before it was a fast AI chat that would explain tech stuff and help me with issues. I used it quite often, even instead of GH Copilot. Now, it's much slower and has some kind of solution view that gets updated with every new message. Found myself to resorting to GH Copilot chat quite often today, because Phind felt like a different/worse service.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738260544, "item_id": 46141284, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46141284", "by": "browningstreet", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Dey phucked up phind.", "excerpt": "I don't get it. I have used Phind a lot over the last year but now I type in the same prompts I used in the past and it's not phind anymore, and it doesn't work for me at all. Dey phucked up phind.", "context": "long-time Phind user", "use_case": "search/answers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["code search", "ai search for developers", "book recommendation search", "learning", "codebase q&a", "search/answers"], "compared": [{"slug": "perplexity", "name": "Perplexity", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "github-copilot", "name": "GitHub Copilot", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "chatgpt", "name": "ChatGPT", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "google-search", "name": "Google Search", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 738299776, "item_id": 46143736, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46143736", "by": "rushingcreek", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "In the meantime, you can use old.phind.com if you still want the old experience.", "excerpt": "Thanks for the specific example -- I'll take a look at this. In the meantime, you can use old.phind.com if you still want the old experience.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738248032, "item_id": 46140502, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46140502", "by": "rushingcreek", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The model you use in Phind makes a big impact.", "excerpt": "Thanks for the feedback! The model you use in Phind makes a big impact. Claude 4.5 Opus in Phind gave a better answer than Phind Fast here: https://www.phind.com/search/build-an-interactive-app-showing-0eb17ad5-d125-4eb6-8a1d-89f28ae14123.", "context": "", "use_case": "AI search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137548", "title": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app", "mentions": 18}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46594533", "title": "Phind.com Is Shutting Down", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48359130", "title": "DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48266051", "title": "Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"warn": 8, "neutral": 2, "recommend": 3, "compare": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 2, "compare": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {"compare": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 773778786, "item_id": 48361174, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48361174", "by": "james2doyle", "date": "2026-06-01", "stance": "compare", "quote": "After switching between Perplexity, Phind, and a couple others", "excerpt": "Maybe I\u2019m a wierdo but I actually like the Brave version of their Search + AI solution: https://search.brave.com/ask After switching between Perplexity, Phind, and a couple others, it seems like the best balance for my use. You can always just use the regular Brave search. It does seem to include an AI summary by default, but you can turn that off: https://search.brave.com/settings#:~:text=Make%20AI%2Dpowered%20answe", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "DuckDuckGo makes its 'no-AI' search engine easier to access as its traffic booms"}, {"id": 772393633, "item_id": 48274602, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48274602", "by": "dahuangf", "date": "2026-05-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For code: Kagi or phind.", "excerpt": "For code: Kagi or phind. For general: Perplexity. For privacy: Brave. I use Google only when I need to find a specific Reddit thread now, ironically.", "context": "", "use_case": "code search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore"}, {"id": 746771232, "item_id": 46673202, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46673202", "by": "BojanTomic", "date": "2026-01-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "A great tool will be missed.", "excerpt": "A great tool will be missed. I wrote an eulogy if someone wants to pay their last respects. https://intelligenttools.co/blog/improved-phind-shutdown-post", "context": "", "use_case": "AI search for developers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Phind.com Is Shutting Down"}, {"id": 745719008, "item_id": 46607438, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46607438", "by": "ashleyn", "date": "2026-01-13", "stance": "compare", "quote": "But they seemed to be quickly outfoxed by Perplexity.", "excerpt": "Phind was the first AI search I used as well. But they seemed to be quickly outfoxed by Perplexity. I started using Perplexity after it was recommended to me as having fewer hallucinations - now it can integrate its tools with SOTA models like Opus.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Phind.com Is Shutting Down"}, {"id": 745579456, "item_id": 46598716, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46598716", "by": "pu_pe", "date": "2026-01-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I really liked the product.", "excerpt": "I used Phind quite a bit about a year ago and thought they were actually very good. In comparison to Perplexity, for example, I thought results were simply much better. I guess at some point the approach of finetuning their own models could not scale, and using third-party APIs would just be prohibitive as well. Congratulations to the team though, for what it's worth I really liked the product.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Phind.com Is Shutting Down"}, {"id": 739162896, "item_id": 46197681, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46197681", "by": "omani", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "you make phind worse and worse. unusable.", "excerpt": "too slow man. come on. you make phind worse and worse. unusable. no need to wait a minute for an answer. seriously, just use https://chat.mistral.ai/chat folks.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738329328, "item_id": 46145583, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46145583", "by": "fainpul", "date": "2025-12-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Didn't really work for me.", "excerpt": "Didn't really work for me. I asked it for something I hacked together myself in the past, so I have an idea of what I want, and I also know that resources like this exist on the internet. So it seemed like a fair test. Prompt: \"I want to build a V-plotter (carriage hanging from two points, connected by light chain or belts). How can I figure out the dimensions of the printable area that will have good print quality? ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738301680, "item_id": 46143855, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46143855", "by": "slake", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is so cool.", "excerpt": "This is so cool. These are shareable I guess? I built this to give me recommendations of good non-fiction books to read... https://www.phind.com/search/i-want-to-find-out-d79b4dca-bac7-437c-9bed-3d3bc1f18007", "context": "", "use_case": "Book recommendation search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738297264, "item_id": 46143579, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46143579", "by": "johnsillings", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "this might replace chatGPT for me for learning stuff.", "excerpt": "i love this. had my doubts when i read the premise, but this might replace chatGPT for me for learning stuff.", "context": "", "use_case": "learning", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738291728, "item_id": 46143233, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46143233", "by": "syndacks", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Where Phind gives you an interactive answer right now", "excerpt": "This is pretty cool! Since we\u2019re sharing related work, I\u2019ve been building something at a very different layer of the stack. Shameless plug warning! Where Phind gives you an interactive answer right now, I built SageNet for the opposite problem: when you want to go from zero \u2192 actually good at something over weeks/months, not just get a one-shot result. SageNet: - builds a personalized learning plan - adapts as you pr", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738280592, "item_id": 46142537, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46142537", "by": "bossyTeacher", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used Phind successfully about 2 years ago to make my way around an old codebase", "excerpt": "Is this a pivot? I used Phind successfully about 2 years ago to make my way around an old codebase", "context": "", "use_case": "Codebase Q&A", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738263824, "item_id": 46141489, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46141489", "by": "k__", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Phind felt like a different/worse service", "excerpt": "Before it was a fast AI chat that would explain tech stuff and help me with issues. I used it quite often, even instead of GH Copilot. Now, it's much slower and has some kind of solution view that gets updated with every new message. Found myself to resorting to GH Copilot chat quite often today, because Phind felt like a different/worse service.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738260544, "item_id": 46141284, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46141284", "by": "browningstreet", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Dey phucked up phind.", "excerpt": "I don't get it. I have used Phind a lot over the last year but now I type in the same prompts I used in the past and it's not phind anymore, and it doesn't work for me at all. Dey phucked up phind.", "context": "long-time Phind user", "use_case": "search/answers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738257216, "item_id": 46141076, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46141076", "by": "rushingcreek", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "My attempt gave more reasonable results", "excerpt": "Oh wow, yeah this one is pretty funny. My attempt gave more reasonable results: https://www.phind.com/search/twinnings-extra-spicy-tea-b174268f-df68-4921-8781-eca09c593c13.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738250672, "item_id": 46140667, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46140667", "by": "rushingcreek", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "A hypothesis here is that well-crafted UI helps you understand/see options for what you don't yet know.", "excerpt": "A hypothesis here is that well-crafted UI helps you understand/see options for what you don't yet know. For example, here's an example for a \"day trip plan in Bristol\" that contains a canonical example (directly based on the query), but also a customization widget that presents some options that you might not have already thought about if you were just doing a text-based followup. https://www.phind.com/search/make-me", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738250128, "item_id": 46140633, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46140633", "by": "dwa3592", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I have never seen wastage of resources as bad as this.", "excerpt": "I asked about twinning extra spicy tea bc i had just made it for me: https://www.phind.com/search/twinnings-extra-spicy-tea-bd067a26-e586-4f4c-a6a5-8a07980f59ae and after about 90 seconds the mini app was created which had a few sliders for cardamom, cinnamon, ginger which was really confusing, then it showed a bunch of other stuff which was also completely useless. I did the same search on Google ( https://tinyurl.c", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738240704, "item_id": 46140044, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46140044", "by": "gavinray", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "warn", "quote": "It did not quite get it right.", "excerpt": "Neat idea! I tried it out with a relatively basic Medicinal Chem/Pharmacology question, asking for an interactive Structure-Activity-Relationship viewer: > \"Build an interactive app showing SAR for a congeneric series. Use simple beta-2 agonists (salbutamol -> formoterol -> salmeterol). Display the common phenethylamine scaffold with R-group positions highlighted, and let me toggle substituents to see how logP, recep", "context": "", "use_case": "AI search and mini-apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738236544, "item_id": 46139784, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46139784", "by": "miduil", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I kinda stopped using it unconsciously. Maybe I'll give it a try again.", "excerpt": "Great reminder that phind still exists, with Gemini Enterprise and ChatGPT + phind always creating massive diagrams I kinda stopped using it unconsciously. Maybe I'll give it a try again.", "context": "", "use_case": "AI search", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738218336, "item_id": 46138646, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46138646", "by": "personjerry", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The problem is I don't think every answer needs a mini-app.", "excerpt": "The problem is I don't think every answer needs a mini-app. I'd argue there are very few answers that do. For example, it feels like Google's featured snippet (quick answer box) but expanded. But the thing is, many people don't like the feature snippet, and there's a reason it doesn't appear for many queries - it doesn't contribute meaningfully to those. This functionality is doing exactly the opposite of the process", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738203328, "item_id": 46137708, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137708", "by": "0xferruccio", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Congrats on the launch I love the idea! Super exciting to see these generative UIs", "excerpt": "Congrats on the launch I love the idea! Super exciting to see these generative UIs I tried to make it generate an explainer page and it created an unrelated page: https://www.phind.com/search/explain-to-me-how-dom-66e58f3f-d1fd-4423-b9c0-bf0dec528acf", "context": "", "use_case": "generating explainer pages", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}, {"id": 738202144, "item_id": 46137634, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137634", "by": "WillAdams", "date": "2025-12-03", "stance": "warn", "quote": "which didn't seem workable at all", "excerpt": "Tried the prompt: >A geometry app with nodes which interact based on their coordinates which may be linked to describe lines or arcs with side panels for variables and programming constructs. which resulted in: https://www.phind.com/search/a-geometry-app-with-nodes-ed4161d7-dd22-4e9a-8199-0507896803d7 which didn't seem workable at all, and notable was lacking in a side panel.", "context": "", "use_case": "AI-generated mini-apps", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Phind 3 (YC S22) \u2013 Every answer is a mini-app"}]}