Vane
Search EnginesAI-powered search engine, formerly Perplexica
Replaces Google Search
Best Cross-Platform Search Engines for self-hosting
The 9 best Cross-Platform search engines you can self-host, ranked by community traction.
Tantivy
Search EnginesFull-text search engine library written in Rust
Replaces Elasticsearch
Morphic
Search EnginesAI-powered answer engine with a generative UI
Replaces Google Search
YaCy
Search EnginesDecentralized peer-to-peer web search engine
Replaces Google Search, Bing
Apache Lucene
Search EnginesFoundational open-source text search engine library
Replaces proprietary search SDKs
Farfalle
Search EnginesOpen-source AI search engine with local model support
Replaces Google Search
Mwmbl
Search EnginesFree, open-source and non-profit web search engine
Replaces Google Search, Bing
Recoll
Search EnginesFull-text desktop and server search for your documents
Replaces Google Desktop
DocFetcher
Search EnginesCross-platform desktop search for document contents
Replaces Google Desktop
No apps match these filters.
At a glance
| App | Deploy effort | Difficulty | Min. RAM | License | ★ Stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vane | ≈5-minute setup | Medium | 1,024 MB | MIT | 37,307 |
| Tantivy | Read-the-docs project | Hard | 128 MB | MIT | 16,213 |
| Morphic | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 1,024 MB | Apache-2.0 | 9,167 |
| YaCy | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 1,024 MB | GPL-2.0 | 4,066 |
| Apache Lucene | Read-the-docs project | Hard | 256 MB | Apache-2.0 | 3,585 |
| Farfalle | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 1,024 MB | Apache-2.0 | 3,539 |
| Mwmbl | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 1,024 MB | AGPL-3.0 | 1,873 |
| Recoll | Read-the-docs project | Medium | 256 MB | GPL-2.0 | 300 |
| DocFetcher | Read-the-docs project | Easy | 256 MB | EPL-1.0 | 64 |
Quick picks
- Most adopted: Vane (37,307 GitHub stars).
- Lightest footprint: Tantivy (from 128 MB RAM, against 1,024 MB for the heaviest here).
- Fastest to deploy: Vane (verified single-container compose).
- Licensing: 3 of 9 use Apache-2.0; check the rest individually if you plan to modify and redistribute.
Every option here is open-source and self-hostable, tagged Cross-Platform within the search engines category. Deploy effort is graded from published container recipes, not vendor claims — see the methodology.