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Xapian

Mature open-source probabilistic search engine library

Search Engines ★ 877 stars Medium setup GPL-2.0

Xapian is a highly adaptable open-source search engine library that provides probabilistic ranking, faceting, and phrase search. It is embedded in many self-hosted applications to deliver full-text search.

Official siteSource code

Key features

  • Probabilistic ranking
  • Faceted search
  • Phrase and proximity search
  • Many language bindings

Pros & cons

Strengths

  • Very mature and stable
  • Embeds anywhere

Trade-offs

  • Library, needs integration
  • C++ build complexity

Is Xapian secure?

OSV.dev has no published security advisories for Xapian's repository. No known vulnerabilities is not proof of security: it means none have been publicly catalogued.

Source: OSV.dev, checked 2026-10-14. How this is measured.

Xapian replaces

Self-hosted Elasticsearch alternatives

Health badge

Maintain Xapian? Add its health score to your README. The badge links back to this page.

SelfHostIndex: 77 · good

Markdown
[![SelfHostIndex health score for Xapian](https://selfhostindex.com/badge/xapian-search.svg)](https://selfhostindex.com/app/xapian-search/)
HTML
<a href="https://selfhostindex.com/app/xapian-search/"><img src="https://selfhostindex.com/badge/xapian-search.svg" alt="SelfHostIndex health score for Xapian"></a>
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.. image:: https://selfhostindex.com/badge/xapian-search.svg
   :alt: SelfHostIndex health score for Xapian
   :target: https://selfhostindex.com/app/xapian-search/

The score is recomputed on every nightly rebuild from public repository data — see how it is calculated.

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