Perplexity Computer vs Personal Computer: cloud rental, your machine, open source

Perplexity's naming makes the shopping harder than it needs to be. Computer is the hosted product. You hand it a task from a browser, a phone, Slack, or Microsoft 365, and it works on Perplexity's machines. Personal Computer is the desktop app for Mac and Windows. Perplexity calls it the superset, because it contains Computer and reaches the files, installed apps, and browser on the machine in front of you. One account covers both. What separates them is whose hardware does the work, and what has to keep running for the work to continue.

A prompt goes in, subagents come out. Perplexity calls Computer a general-purpose digital worker that operates the same interfaces you do, and says one run can last hours or months. Pro and Max subscribers reach it on desktop, mobile, Slack, and Microsoft 365 (checked October 2026).

Then the meter. Perplexity's pricing page puts Pro at $17 a month billed annually and Max at $167 a month billed annually. Max includes 10,000 credits a month. The credits article prices 100 credits at $1 and sizes the work. A quick fact runs 15 to 70 credits, a multi-step report 350 to 950, a dashboard 2,400 to 9,800. Paid Pro plans carry a weekly allowance of Computer usage before credits start. A new account gets a one-time bonus, 4,000 credits on Pro or 35,000 on Max (checked October 2026). At zero, running tasks pause and new ones wait. The rates behind those numbers are set out on the Perplexity Computer pricing breakdown.

Personal Computer is a download rather than a service. It installs on any Mac running macOS 15 Sequoia or later. Windows 10 version 1809 or later and Windows 11 got it on 28 July 2026 (checked October 2026).

The perk is proximity. Inside the Mac build, Computer drives Mail, Finder, Slack, Messages, and Notes, and it can open, change, and search any folder you connect. Windows gets the files and the Office documents, and Perplexity is explicit that installed-app control is not there yet. Linux is a third case. Portable Computer runs on Ubuntu with a supported NVIDIA RTX GPU or on DGX Spark, installed with apt, and the model and the agent both live on the device.

Local models change the arithmetic. On an Apple silicon Mac with 24 GB of unified memory or more, cloud models plan and a local model takes the private parts. AMD and NVIDIA machines need 24 GB of memory or VRAM, and local inference is part of Pro, Max, and Enterprise. Windows, Linux, and DGX Spark hold one local model at a time. Anything a local model handles costs no credits.

Forget the feature matrix, because two operational facts settle this. The first is uptime. Perplexity suggests a Mac mini for continuous work, which is the polite version of saying the product wants a computer that never sleeps. Close the laptop lid and the local half of the job stops. Computer is indifferent to your hardware.

The second is the meter. Credits run out mid-task and the work waits for a top-up. On-device work skips the meter entirely, which is why overnight and recurring jobs are the Portable pitch.

The platform split is where most comparisons go wrong. Local files and Office documents work on Windows today, installed-app control does not. Linux gets Portable Computer and nothing else. Work that lives inside Mac applications needs the Mac build.

Kortix takes your hardware out of the answer. Sessions run on Kortix Cloud, so no machine on your desk has to stay awake. Self-host is free for anyone who would rather run the stack on their own server, and the install is in the self-hosting guide. The paid plan is credits: 25 tiers from $50 a month (5,000 credits) to $50,000 a month (5,000,000 credits), at 100 credits per dollar. The rest of the rate card is on Kortix.

Say the trade plainly. Personal Computer reaches desktop apps that a cloud computer cannot touch, and Portable Computer keeps an entire task on hardware you own. Computer's subagents are the product of months of work at Perplexity. Kortix asks you to maintain your own configuration, and to run a server if you self-host.

• Ownership first: self-host is free, and the self-hosting guide plus the comparison with Perplexity Computer cover the rest.
• If the work sits in the machine in front of you, Personal Computer is the direct answer. Use macOS for app control, Windows for local files and Office documents, and a Mac mini left running if it has to continue without you.
• If the work is research, reports, and browser automation, and Pro or Max is already on the card, Computer needs no hardware of yours, at a credit rate worth watching.

Whether Perplexity publishes the source for either product has its own answer at the open-source question. The short version of all of this sits in the FAQ.