Rating certificate · AW/26-09/15526 Sept 2026
Not enough evidence
GPT Researcher
Assaf Elovic / GPT Researcher community (open source) · Research agents
Trust BOpen source
The Register / Research agents / GPT Researcher
Register entry · Research agents · updated 26 Sept 2026
GPT Researcher
GPT Researcher is an Apache-2.0 research agent that uses a planner agent to generate research questions, parallel execution agents to gather sources, and a publisher step to aggregate a cited report of 2,000+ words. It runs as a self-hosted web app (FastAPI backend with HTML or Next.js frontend), a pip package, or an MCP server, with any OpenAI-compatible model and configurable retrievers (Tavily by default). A 'deep research' mode does recursive tree-style exploration.
What reviewers and users praise
- Among the most-recommended self-hostable deep-research options for local models (r/LocalLLaMA threads, 2026)
- Designed as an embeddable report-generation component with a long track record (Digital Applied, Aug 2026)
What they criticise
- Setup and runtime reliability complaints with local models (runtime errors, browser refresh needed, crashes)
- Reports can fabricate sources when retrieval returns nothing (GitHub issue #1572)
- Backend ships without authentication; several 2026 CVEs were closed as out of scope, so operators must isolate it themselves
- Maintenance gaps: a user survey called it 'semi-alive' and 'poorly maintained' in May 2026; an August 2026 release landed 97 queued PRs
Experts vs the crowdneeds both scores
Experts—
Crowd—
| Price | Free |
|---|---|
| Use it via | Web app, API, MCP server |
| Runs on | macos, linux, windows |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 |
| Updated | Evidence collected 26 Sept 2026 |
How the rating was worked out
Weights for Research agents: adoption 35%, experts 40%, crowd 25%. Fewer than two pillars have enough evidence. The method.
| Adoption & momentumweight 35% | 47 | GitHub stars 30k → 75 · PyPI monthly downloads 38k → 25 · 2 releases in 90 days → 40reach × 0.7 + momentum × 0.3 |
|---|---|---|
| Expertsindependent reviews · weight 40% | — | Only 2 independent reviews (3 needed) |
| Crowdcommunity sample · weight 25% | — | Only 3 community items sampled (6 needed) |
| Rating | — | Not rated: fewer than two pillars have enough evidence. |
Evidence checks. 2 items removed: date does not match the source (2). 1 review from tool directories, AI-written pages or unnamed authors not counted. 3 GitHub issues not counted as sentiment. 1 item could not be checked at the source (the page could not be fetched, or the quote is from a comment under the linked post); kept and marked “unverified”. How evidence is checked.
Editorial adjustment. Incident-history grade reviewed under methodology revision 2 (see the trust section).
Trust & safety
Seven dimensions graded A–D from documented facts. Overall: B.
n/e
Permission model
Research agent that browses and scrapes the web; no sandbox or approval-mode documentation found. MCP integration can execute configured servers (see CVE-2026-5631 / CVE-2026-37006). Rubric mapping unclear; not graded. source
n/e
Data access scope
Local research reads documents from an operator-configured document path; web research fetches arbitrary URLs. Scoping documentation not reviewed in detail. source
A
Data storage
Self-hosted pip package / web app; no vendor cloud storage required. Queries go to the operator's chosen LLM and search API. source
n/e
Data retention & training
No vendor-hosted data store; retention and training depend on the LLM and search providers the operator configures.
D
Incident history (24 months)
Six CVEs published April-August 2026 (XSS, code injection via MCP config, missing authentication, SSRF, unauthenticated RCE via WebSocket MCP config). The maintainer fixed the reflected-XSS report (#1692) but closed #1693-#1696 as 'not planned', stating the backend 'intentionally does not ship with built-in authentication' and is meant for trusted environments. Serious and unresolved by design. Kept at D under revision 2: the maintainer closed four of the five reports as 'not planned' (unresolved by design). source
D
Compliance
No SOC 2 / ISO 27001 attestation; community open-source project. source
A
Transparency
Apache-2.0 source with GitHub release notes and public docs. source
The experts
2 named independent reviews found; dated reviews from the last 12 months are scored.
- positive
GPT-Researcher’s planner-execution-publisher split, MCP support and export formats are built for exactly this, and it has the longest continuous track record in the set.
Digital Applied (publication, team byline) · 4 Aug 2026 · digitalapplied.com - positive
GPT Researcher with a free-tier search API and an open-weight model via Ollama is the most capable free configuration in 2026.
Anish Rao (Listen Labs; content-marketing article for a different research product) · 24 Mar 2026 · listenlabs.com
The crowd
3 coded posts from reddit, hackernews.
3 positive0 mixed0 negative
- positive
the best one so far, but I need to refresh the browser after each research run
r/LocalLLaMA 'solution for local deep research' (u/jacek2023) · 15 Jan 2026 · reddit.com - positive
If you want something more turnkey than rolling your own, check out gpt-researcher on GitHub. It implements the iterative search loop you're ...
r/LocalLLaMA 'Best "Deep research" for local LLM in 2026' (comment) · 5 Feb 2026 · search snippet · unverified · reddit.com - positive
if you hook up a local model to GPT Researcher or Onyx frontend, you will see reasonable performance
Claude Code: connect to a local model when your quota runs out (comment) · 5 Feb 2026 · news.ycombinator.com
Pricing
As published, checked 26 Sept 2026.
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Open source (self-hosted) | Free | Apache-2.0; LLM and search-API (e.g. Tavily) costs are paid separately. |
Recent changes
- 24 Aug 2026
v3.6.1 'Major fixes': restored main, added CI and landed 97 queued PRs. source
- 18 Jul 2026
v3.6.0 stability/security release; collaboration with LangChain's deep agents framework announced. source
- 25 Jun 2026
Maintainer closed four CVE reports as not planned, citing a trusted-environment threat model. source
- 28 May 2026
v3.5.0 with new models, retrievers and bug fixes. source
Sources
Every figure above traces to one of these, observed up to 26 Sept 2026.