SHSelfHostIndex

PeARS vs ZincSearch

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?
PE PeARS Lightweight distributed web search you can host yourself VS ZI ZincSearch Lightweight search engine alternative to Elasticsearch
FeaturePeARSZincSearch
CategorySearch EnginesSearch Engines
LicenseAGPL-3.0Apache-2.0
LanguageHTMLGo
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM512 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, kubernetes, binary
GitHub stars★ 38★ 17,884
First released20172021
ReplacesGoogle SearchElasticsearch, Algolia

Why pick each one

Choose PeARS if…

  • Very lightweight
  • Community oriented
PeARS details

Choose ZincSearch if…

  • Simple to run
  • Much lighter than Elasticsearch
ZincSearch details

Frequently asked questions

Is PeARS or ZincSearch better?

ZincSearch is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider PeARS if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are PeARS and ZincSearch free and open-source?

Yes. PeARS is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and ZincSearch under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run PeARS and ZincSearch with Docker?

PeARS: yes. ZincSearch: yes.

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