Morphic vs Stract
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted search engines options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Morphic | Stract |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 92 · Excellent | 15 · At risk |
| Status | Actively maintained | Archived |
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | Rust |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 4,096 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 9,140 | ★ 2,371 |
| First released | 2024 | 2023 |
| Replaces | Google Search | Google Search, Bing |
What are Morphic and Stract?
Morphic
Morphic is an open-source AI-powered answer engine featuring a generative interface. It searches the web and composes interactive, sourced answers and can be self-hosted with various model providers.
- Generative answer interface
- Web search with citations
- Multiple model provider support
- Self-hostable with Docker
Stract
Stract is an open-source web search engine built from scratch in Rust. It includes its own crawler and index and aims to give users more transparency and control over ranking.
- Independent web crawler and index
- Customizable ranking signals
- Optic-based result filtering
- Modern Rust implementation
Morphic vs Stract: key differences
The biggest difference is maintenance: Stract's repository is archived and no longer developed, while Morphic is actively maintained. Morphic is written in TypeScript, while Stract is built with Rust. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Morphic versus AGPL-3.0 for Stract. Morphic is the lighter option, starting around 1,024 MB of RAM against 4,096 MB for Stract. Morphic has the considerably larger community, at 9,140 GitHub stars versus 2,371.
Why pick each one
Choose Morphic if…
- Modern interactive UI
- Flexible model backends
Watch out for
- Requires external search API keys
Choose Stract if…
- Transparent ranking
- Independent index
Watch out for
- Large hardware requirements for full crawl
Frequently asked questions
Is Morphic or Stract better?
Morphic is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Stract if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Morphic and Stract free and open-source?
Yes. Morphic is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Stract under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Morphic and Stract with Docker?
Morphic: yes. Stract: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Morphic or Stract?
Morphic has the smaller minimum footprint at 1,024 MB of RAM, compared to about 4,096 MB for Stract. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.