What is the Perplexity sonar API?

Perplexity's sonar API provides real-time, search-grounded AI responses via an OpenAI-compatible REST API. Every response includes citations from live web sources.

Quick Start

```javascript

const response = await fetch("https://api.perplexity.ai/chat/completions", {

method: "POST",

headers: {

"Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.PERPLEXITY_API_KEY}`,

"Content-Type": "application/json",

},

body: JSON.stringify({

model: "sonar",

messages: [{ role: "user", content: "What are today's top AI news stories?" }],

}),

});

const data = await response.json();

console.log(data.choices[0].message.content);

```

Available Models

- **sonar** — Fast, search-grounded responses

- **sonar-pro** — Deeper reasoning with more citations

- **sonar-reasoning** — Extended chain-of-thought with search

Use Cases

Best for: real-time news summaries, competitive research, fact-checking pipelines, and any task requiring up-to-date information.