SearX vs Weaviate

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?
FeatureSearXWeaviate
CategorySearch EnginesSearch Engines
LicenseAGPL-3.0BSD-3-Clause
LanguagePythonGo
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM256 MB2,048 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, kubernetes, helm
GitHub stars★ 13,532★ 16,704
First released20142019
ReplacesGoogle Search, BingPinecone, Algolia

Why pick each one

Choose SearX if…

  • Lightweight
  • Foundational privacy search
SearX details

Choose Weaviate if…

  • Great for AI semantic search
  • Easy to start
Weaviate details

Frequently asked questions

Is SearX or Weaviate better?

Neither is universally better. Weaviate has the larger community, while SearX is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are SearX and Weaviate free and open-source?

Yes. SearX is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Weaviate under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run SearX and Weaviate with Docker?

SearX: yes. Weaviate: yes.

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