Marginalia Search vs PeARS
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted search engines options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Marginalia Search | PeARS |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 68 · Good | 0 · At risk |
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Java | HTML |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 4,096 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, source | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,157 | ★ 38 |
| First released | 2021 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Google Search | Google Search |
What are Marginalia Search and PeARS?
Marginalia Search
Marginalia Search is an open-source independent web search engine with its own crawler and index, designed to surface text-focused, non-commercial websites. It can be self-hosted to run a private instance.
- Independent web crawler and index
- Text-focused results
- Self-hostable
- Non-commercial bias
PeARS
PeARS is a lightweight, distributed web search engine designed to run on modest hardware. It lets communities index and share parts of the web without a central server.
- Runs on low-power hardware
- Community-shared indexes
- Decentralized search
- Privacy preserving
Marginalia Search vs PeARS: key differences
Marginalia Search is written in Java, while PeARS is built with HTML. PeARS is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 4,096 MB for Marginalia Search. PeARS is the more established project (first released 2017), while Marginalia Search arrived in 2021. Marginalia Search has the considerably larger community, at 2,157 GitHub stars versus 38.
Why pick each one
Choose Marginalia Search if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (2.2k GitHub stars)
- Written in Java
Choose PeARS if…
- Very lightweight
- Community oriented
Watch out for
- Small project and index
Frequently asked questions
Is Marginalia Search or PeARS better?
Neither is universally better. Marginalia Search has the larger community, while PeARS is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Marginalia Search and PeARS free and open-source?
Yes. Marginalia Search is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and PeARS under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Marginalia Search and PeARS with Docker?
Marginalia Search: yes. PeARS: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Marginalia Search or PeARS?
PeARS has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 MB of RAM, compared to about 4,096 MB for Marginalia Search. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.