4get vs Sonic
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted search engines options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
4get
Lightweight privacy-friendly metasearch proxy
VS
Sonic
Fast, lightweight schema-less search backend
| Feature | 4get | Sonic |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Language | PHP | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 800 | ★ 21,299 |
| First released | 2022 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Google Search, Bing | Algolia, Elasticsearch |
Why pick each one
Frequently asked questions
Is 4get or Sonic better?
Neither is universally better. Sonic has the larger community, while 4get is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are 4get and Sonic free and open-source?
Yes. 4get is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Sonic under MPL-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run 4get and Sonic with Docker?
4get: yes. Sonic: yes.