Falcon (TII) vs Perplexity AI
Which one should you pick? Here's the full breakdown.
Falcon (TII)
UAE's Technology Innovation Institute open-weights family -- Falcon 3 optimized for efficient sub-10B deployment on consumer hardware
Perplexity AI
AI-powered search engine that gives cited answers instead of a list of links
| Category | Falcon (TII) | Perplexity AI |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 7.0 | 9.0 |
| Output Quality | 6.5 | 8.0 |
| Value | 9.0 | 9.0 |
| Features | 6.0 | 8.0 |
| Overall | 7.1 | 8.5 |
Pricing Comparison
| Feature | Falcon (TII) | Perplexity AI |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | Yes | Yes |
| Starting Price | $0 | $0 |
Benchmark Head-to-Head
Falcon 3 10B benchmarks — Perplexity AI has no published benchmarks
| Benchmark | Description | Score |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU | Knowledge across 57 subjects | 73.1% |
| GPQA Diamond | Graduate-level science questions | 42.5% |
| HumanEval | Python code generation | 73.8% |
| MATH | Math problem solving | 55.4% |
Which Should You Pick?
Pick Falcon (TII) if...
Developers who need a genuinely Apache-2.0 small model for on-device or edge deployment, or who need strong Arabic/multilingual support.
Visit Falcon (TII)Pick Perplexity AI if...
- ✓Higher output quality (8 vs 6.5)
- ✓Easier to use (9 vs 7)
- ✓More features (8 vs 6)
Researchers, students, professionals, and anyone who needs factual answers with sources. It's what Google should have become.
Visit Perplexity AIOur Verdict
Perplexity AI is the clear winner here with 8.5/10 vs 7.1/10. Falcon (TII) isn't bad, but Perplexity AI outperforms it across the board. Pick Falcon (TII) only if developers who need a genuinely apache-2.