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Vane alternatives (2026)
Vane is a research tool: Open-source AI answering engine that searches the web and replies with sources, self-hostable. Pricing, as the maker states it: Open source. Its GitHub repo has 37,364 stars. We found 46 tools in the directory that do overlapping work (research); 28 of them are open source and 11 list a free or freemium plan. Below are the 10 closest, ranked by how many tasks and sub-tasks they share with Vane, then by GitHub stars.
Updated
Quick comparison Top 10 of 11 listed below. Pricing as the maker states it; blank means we don't have it.
| Tool | Pricing | Best for | Open source |
|---|---|---|---|
 Agent-Reach | Open source | Build an agent | Yes |
 Deer Flow | Open source | Write code | Yes |
 STORM | Open source | Research the web | Yes |
 GPT Researcher | Open source | Write code | Yes |
 DB-GPT | Open source | Research the web | Yes |
 WrenAI | Open source + cloud | Research the web | Yes |
 SurfSense | Open source | Research the web | Yes |
 Feynman | Open source | Write code | Yes |
 EvoScientist | Open source | Research the web | Yes |
 DeepAnalyze | Open source | Write code | Yes |
- Agent-Reach (Open source): Lets an AI agent read and search sites like X, Reddit, YouTube and GitHub through one toolkit, without paid APIs. Consider it because it is aimed at developers who want to build on it; it also covers agent frameworks and SDKs; it has more GitHub stars (98,176 vs 37,364).
- Deer Flow (Open source): ByteDance's open-source long-horizon agent harness that researches, codes and creates using sandboxes, memory and sub-agents. Consider it because it is aimed at developers who want to build on it; it also covers memory and research and reports; it has more GitHub stars (83,959 vs 37,364).
- STORM (Open source): Stanford system that writes Wikipedia-style articles from web research. Consider it because it is aimed at developers who want to build on it; it also covers research and reports.
- GPT Researcher (Open source): Autonomous agent that researches the web and writes cited reports. Consider it because it is aimed at developers who want to build on it; it also covers research and reports.
- DB-GPT (Open source): Open-source agentic data assistant for querying and analyzing data with LLMs. Consider it because it is aimed at developers who want to build on it.
- WrenAI (Open source + cloud): Generative BI for agents: governed text-to-SQL with a semantic context layer. Consider it because it is aimed at developers who want to build on it; it also covers codebase context and code search and SQL and databases.
- SurfSense (Open source): Privacy-focused, open-source NotebookLM alternative with a research agent over your sources. Consider it because it also covers notebooks and research and reports.
- Feynman (Open source): Open-source research agent that searches, reads papers and writes cited reports. Consider it because it is aimed at developers who want to build on it; it also covers research and reports.
- EvoScientist (Open source): Self-evolving AI scientist system that autonomously explores research ideas, runs experiments and improves with growing skills and memory. Consider it because it is aimed at developers who want to build on it; it also covers memory and research and reports.
- DeepAnalyze (Open source): Agentic LLM from Renmin University that autonomously runs data science pipelines and produces analyst-grade research reports. Consider it because it is aimed at developers who want to build on it; it also covers research and reports.
Vane vs alternatives at a glance
| Tool | Pricing | Open source / licence | GitHub stars | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Vane | Open source | MIT | 37,364 | research |
| Agent-Reach | Open source | MIT | 98,176 | building AI agents, research |
| Deer Flow | Open source | MIT | 83,959 | writing code, building AI agents |
| STORM | Open source | MIT | 31,627 | research |
| GPT Researcher | Open source | Apache License 2.0 | 30,082 | writing code, research |
| DB-GPT | Open source | MIT | 20,156 | research, open-source agents |
| WrenAI | Open source + cloud | Apache-2.0 for code; CC BY 4.0 for docs | 17,881 | research, data analysis |
| SurfSense | Open source | Apache-2.0 | 16,459 | research, data analysis |
| Feynman | Open source | MIT | 9,976 | writing code, research |
| EvoScientist | Open source | Yes | 4,984 | research, memory for agents |
| DeepAnalyze | Open source | Yes | 4,727 | writing code, research |
More: Vane listing · All research tools · All alternatives pages
Related searches: Open-source AI research agents · Free AI research agents
Alternatives are picked from directory data only: same category plus shared tasks and sub-tasks. Pricing is as each maker states it; GitHub stars as recorded on each listing.