Captain vs Carbon (Perplexity) (2026)

Pros

• Best-in-class accuracy — tops Open-RAG-Benchmark with 20%+ improvement over standard RAG
• Turnkey setup with just two API calls to go from raw files to searchable knowledge base
• Multimodal by default — handles text, images, tables, scanned documents, and complex PDFs
• Broad data source integrations connecting to 1,000+ sources including S3, SharePoint, Confluence
• SOC 2 Type II certified with enterprise-ready security from day one

Cons

• Credit-based pricing varies significantly by document complexity, making budgeting unpredictable
• Early-stage 2-person team may concern enterprises needing SLA guarantees
• BYOC/on-prem deployment requires Enterprise plan with custom pricing

Pros

• Pre-built connectors for easy integration with multiple data sources
• AI-optimized data processing with automatic chunking, embedding, and cleaning
• Enterprise-grade security with SOC 2 Type II compliance and end-to-end encryption
• Streamlined RAG development with production-ready infrastructure
• Now backed by Perplexity AI with enhanced enterprise capabilities

Cons