GPT Researcher: review, pricing, security and alternatives

What GPT Researcher does

GPT Researcher belongs to the deep research family: agents that search, read and cross-check dozens of sources to produce a sourced report. On our grid it ranks #2 of the 18 projects of this family listed in the directory.

You use it from: web app, API, and developer SDK. Usable models: any OpenAI-compatible model. It can run on your own machine or server.

Who is GPT Researcher for?

It targets analysts, students and teams who must cross-check many sources to produce a reasoned summary. Typical tasks people give it:

• write a sourced overview of a topic
• compare products or competitors
• prepare a technical or regulatory watch

It is a good candidate if you prefer doing everything in a browser, with no install and your data must stay on your machines.

Access and human control

According to its documentation, GPT Researcher can:

• call online services and APIs
• read and edit files

We could not establish whether it asks for human approval before sensitive actions: test it first on an unimportant account or folder.

GPT Researcher pricing

The code is free, under the Apache-2.0 licence.

Getting started with GPT Researcher

1. Install it: the project ships as a Python package (install with pip or uv). The exact command is in the repository README.
2. Create an API key with the model provider and put it in an environment variable, never in a shared or versioned file.
3. Give it a first playground with nothing at stake: a test folder, a secondary account or a throwaway project. Only open your real accounts once you have seen how it behaves.
4. Give it a short, checkable task, review the result and its action log, then raise the difficulty step by step.

Security: risk level

An agent's report may cite misread or invented sources: check the links before reusing a figure.

Points found for GPT Researcher:

• Outside content: it reads web pages or API responses, which may contain booby-trapped instructions (prompt injection).

Three habits: least privilege (minimal rights, dedicated keys), human approval for irreversible actions, a sandbox for code execution. The AI agent security check reviews your setup in a few minutes.

Project activity and releases

Created on May 12, 2023, the assafelovic/gpt-researcher repository has 30,277 stars, 4,134 forks and 10 open issues, with 3,219 commits in total. It received changes this month.

Over the last 52 weeks: 280 commits, an average of 5.4 per week.

74 releases in total; 13 in the last twelve months. Latest release: v3.7.0, on September 26, 2026.

GPT Researcher vs other deep research

GitHub stars of the best-rated open-source projects in the deep research family. Stars measure attention, not quality: a heavily promoted project collects them fast, a specialised tool will have few.

GPT Researcher and other deep research at a glance

The 7 best-ranked agents in the same family, 7 of them open source. The score out of 100 only applies to open-source projects; for proprietary services we show the published entry price. A dash marks information the documentation does not state.

How we rated it

Score: 80/100, computed only from public, verifiable data, with no subjective testing or partnership:

• Adoption 30/40: 30,277 stars on a log scale (40 points from about 200,000).
• Activity 25/30: last commit less than a month ago, 5 releases in six months, 280 commits in a year.
• Framework 25/30: licence, default human approval, self-hosting, model choice and documentation site.

The score does not say whether the agent will succeed at your tasks: it measures how solid the project is. The full grid is on the method page.