Stract vs Whoogle Search
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted search engines options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Stract | Whoogle Search |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 15 · At risk | 15 · At risk |
| Status | Archived | Archived |
| Category | Search Engines | Search Engines |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Rust | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 4,096 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, source | docker, kubernetes, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,371 | ★ 11,570 |
| First released | 2023 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Google Search, Bing | Google Search |
What are Stract and Whoogle Search?
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
Whoogle Search
Whoogle Search is a lightweight, self-hosted metasearch engine that returns Google results without ads, JavaScript, tracking or cookies. It offers a clean, minimal interface focused on privacy.
- Ad-free Google results
- No JavaScript or tracking
- Custom theming and config
- Works as a browser search engine
Stract vs Whoogle Search: key differences
Note that both projects' repositories are archived — neither is actively developed. Stract is written in Rust, while Whoogle Search is built with Python. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Stract versus MIT for Whoogle Search. Whoogle Search is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 4,096 MB for Stract. Whoogle Search is the more established project (first released 2020), while Stract arrived in 2023. Whoogle Search has the considerably larger community, at 11,570 GitHub stars versus 2,371.
Why pick each one
Choose Stract if…
- Transparent ranking
- Independent index
Watch out for
- Large hardware requirements for full crawl
Choose Whoogle Search if…
- Very lightweight
- Clean minimal results
Watch out for
- Depends on scraping Google
Frequently asked questions
Is Stract or Whoogle Search better?
Whoogle Search is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Stract if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Stract and Whoogle Search free and open-source?
Yes. Stract is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Whoogle Search under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Stract and Whoogle Search with Docker?
Stract: yes. Whoogle Search: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Stract or Whoogle Search?
Whoogle Search has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 4,096 MB for Stract. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.