SHSelfHostIndex

SearX vs SearXNG

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?
SE SearX The original privacy-respecting metasearch engine VS SearXNG Privacy-respecting metasearch engine aggregating many sources
FeatureSearXSearXNG
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setup≈5-minute setup
Health score65 · Good98 · Excellent
CategorySearch EnginesSearch Engines
LicenseAGPL-3.0AGPL-3.0
LanguagePythonPython
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, kubernetes, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 13,553★ 37,570
First released20142021
ReplacesGoogle Search, BingGoogle Search, Bing

What are SearX and SearXNG?

SearX

SearX is the original open-source metasearch engine that aggregates results from multiple search engines while protecting user privacy. It paved the way for the modern SearXNG fork.

  • Privacy-respecting metasearch
  • No tracking of queries
  • Configurable engine list
  • JSON API output

Read the full SearX guide →

SearXNG

SearXNG is a free, open-source metasearch engine that aggregates results from more than 70 search services without tracking or profiling users. It is the actively maintained fork of the original SearX project.

  • Aggregates 70+ search engines
  • No tracking or user profiling
  • Customizable engines and categories
  • Optional result proxying

Read the full SearXNG guide →

SearX vs SearXNG: key differences

Both projects are written in Python. SearX is the more established project (first released 2014), while SearXNG arrived in 2021. SearXNG has the considerably larger community, at 37,570 GitHub stars versus 13,553.

Why pick each one

Choose SearX if…

  • Lightweight
  • Foundational privacy search

Watch out for

  • Largely superseded by SearXNG
SearX details

Choose SearXNG if…

  • Strong privacy guarantees
  • Highly configurable

Watch out for

  • Public instances can be rate limited
SearXNG details

Frequently asked questions

Is SearX or SearXNG better?

Neither is universally better. SearXNG has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are SearX and SearXNG free and open-source?

Yes. SearX is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and SearXNG under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run SearX and SearXNG with Docker?

SearX: yes. SearXNG: yes.

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