Understanding Search (Serper et al vs OpenAI/Anthropic built in vs Google/AzureAI tools).

[tillycatcat]

I can't be the only one who finds Web Search confusing. For the benefit of everyone, I wanted to break down some questions that can possibly be answered and then be incorporated into the documentation.

Three Ways to Search the Web

There seems to be three ways to use web searches with Librechat

1 - Web Search using Serper, Firecrawl, Jina

If you are using the main Librechat interface (where you just choose a model, rather than an agent), using web search requires you to have an API for Serper, Firecrawl and Jina. In my experience, this seems to be a fairly slow solution.

2 - OpenAI/Anthropic/Gemini Built in Search Engines

OpenAI and Anthropic both seem to have included search within their APIs without the need for any external tools. However, in the LibreChat interface, you can only take advantage of this if you create and use an agent, and then toggle Web Search on.

This web search toggle enables the functionality, but it is unclear how this interacts with the first Web Search option above, and if having that option on overrides turning on web search in the agent screen.

In my testing, web search using the providers in built search functionality is faster than option 1.

Gemini seems to be a bit of a mess with this, and only seems to work in conjunction with method 3 below.

3 - Google/AzureAI Search Tool

You can also enable the Google/AzureAI Search Tool which can be configured for use with an Agent.

Questions

Is there a way to use option 2 or 3 above without using an Agent?

The strength of the main interface is the ability to switch between multiple models for general purpose usage. However if you want to use the built in search APIs or a Tool, I can't find an option to do this.

What is the benefit of option 1 (Serper Firecrawl Jina) for your average user?

Given you can use first and second party tools (Google Tool AzureAI / OpenAI and Anthropic engines) to search, why would your average user want to use option 1?

Is there a way to make any of these options faster?

Compared to using the first party interfaces for these products, web search seems to crawl. Is this just me? I also seem to have fairly slow responses compared to those interfaces for regular requests at times, so I'd like to know any tips to get this a bit more speedy.