Delv
Researchby You.com★ 4.3

You.com

Conversational search platform with Custom Agents, model selection and enterprise AI for research workflows.

Try it Also in Tools: AI Research →
B
Safety & Trust

Delv Safety Grade: B

Score 68/100 · assessed 2026-04-18

Maintainer75
Permissions65
Supply chain55
Transparency50
Incidents95

You.com is a commercial conversational search platform operated by a venture-backed company founded in 2020. The service offers custom AI agents and multi-model selection for research workflows. As a closed-source web platform with API access, it provides reasonable operational transparency through its commercial presence but lacks open-source verification. The maintainer is a legitimate mid-size company with active development, though not a major tech vendor. Supply chain risk is moderate as users interact via web interface or API rather than installing local code. Permissions include network access for search, potential access to user queries and data, and integration with external LLMs. The freemium model with enterprise tiers suggests professional operation, but closed-source nature limits independent security review. No known security incidents, though the platform handles potentially sensitive research queries.

Green flags

  • Legitimate venture-backed company with public presence since 2020
  • Enterprise tier suggests professional security standards
  • Web-based reduces local supply chain risk
  • No known security incidents or data breaches
  • Multi-model approach reduces single-vendor lock-in

Red flags

  • Closed-source platform prevents independent security audit
  • No public repository or code transparency
  • Handles potentially sensitive research queries without open review
  • Custom agents feature scope unclear without technical documentation

Permissions requested

Outbound networkExternal LLM callIdentity readSend messages
Assessed by Delv Editorial using public metadata. Grades are advisory and update as the ecosystem changes. They do not replace your own review of permissions and code before granting an agent access to sensitive systems.

Pricing

FREEMIUM — Free tier, paid from $20/mo

Platforms

webapi

Review

You.com positions itself as a conversational search platform with Custom Agents, but the autonomy here is more about configurable assistants than true agent behaviour. You're not launching a task and watching it iterate through a plan - you're chatting with a search-augmented LLM that can be customised with instructions, model choice, and data sources. The real strength is the Custom Agents feature. I built one for competitor analysis that pulls live web data, filters by date range, and formats output as structured tables. It works because You.com's search index is genuinely current - not the stale web snapshots you get from some competitors. When I need to track product launches or pricing changes across a dozen SaaS tools, this beats manually refreshing browser tabs or waiting for a generic LLM to hallucinate outdated facts. Model selection is table stakes now, but You.com handles it cleanly. Switch between GPT-4, Claude, or their own models mid-conversation without losing context. The API access means I can pipe custom agents into Slack or internal tools, which is where the enterprise pitch makes sense. For research teams drowning in Notion docs and scattered bookmarks, having a single conversational interface with live search is legitimately useful. Failure modes: the autonomy is overstated. These agents don't plan multi-step workflows or recover from errors. They're stateless assistants with better search grounding. If you need something to draft a report, fetch missing data, revise based on feedback, and publish - you're still orchestrating every step. The free tier is generous for casual use, but the $20/month paid plan is where you get API access and higher rate limits, which is when this becomes a tool rather than a novelty. Compared to Perplexity, You.com offers more customisation but less polish in the core search experience. Perplexity's citations are tighter, its summaries more reliable. You.com wins if you need to build repeatable workflows around specific research patterns - competitor tracking, academic literature reviews, technical documentation searches. It loses if you just want the fastest answer to a one-off question. The enterprise AI pitch is real for orgs that need to centralise research workflows, but most solo developers will find the free tier sufficient for exploratory work. The Custom Agents are the hook - everything else is competent but unremarkable.
Verdict

Pay for You.com if you're building repeatable research workflows that need live web data and custom formatting. Skip it if you just need fast, accurate answers - Perplexity does that better. The free tier is worth trying for the Custom Agents feature alone.

Good at

  • Custom Agents with live web search and structured output formatting
  • Model selection (GPT-4, Claude, proprietary) without context loss
  • API access for integrating agents into internal tools
  • Genuinely current search index, not stale snapshots
  • Generous free tier for exploratory research

Watch out

  • Autonomy is overstated - agents are stateless assistants, not planners
  • Search citations less polished than Perplexity
  • Paid tier required for API and higher rate limits
  • No multi-step workflow orchestration or error recovery
  • Enterprise features feel undercooked for solo users

Use cases

  • research
  • custom assistants
  • search