SHSelfHostIndex

SearXNG vs Summa

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 SearXNG Privacy-respecting metasearch engine aggregating many sources VS SU Summa Full-text search server able to run in the browser via WASM
FeatureSearXNGSumma
CategorySearch EnginesSearch Engines
LicenseAGPL-3.0MIT
LanguagePythonRust
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetes, bare-metaldocker, binary
GitHub stars★ 35,091★ 291
First released20212021
ReplacesGoogle Search, BingElasticsearch

Why pick each one

Choose SearXNG if…

  • Strong privacy guarantees
  • Highly configurable
SearXNG details

Choose Summa if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Written in Rust
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Summa details

Frequently asked questions

Is SearXNG or Summa better?

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

Are SearXNG and Summa free and open-source?

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

Can I run SearXNG and Summa with Docker?

SearXNG: yes. Summa: yes.

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