Open-source Mojeek alternatives

YaCy is a complete search engine application: a server that hosts a search index, a web interface for searching and creating the index, and a production-ready crawler with a scheduler to keep the index fresh. It can run as a node in a distributed peer-to-peer network or as a private search portal.

YaCy search portals can also be placed inside an intranet, where the README says they can replace commercial enterprise search products, and a network scanner helps discover HTTP, FTP and SMB servers to index. The project was created with privacy as a primary motivation, and running a personal search engine avoids handing queries to a central provider. It is written in Java and tagged for decentralized search and privacy protection.

The repository license is shown as 'Other' on GitHub, reflecting the GPL family of licenses, so check the terms. YaCy is self-hosted on your own machine or server. It suits privacy-minded users, organizations that need intranet search and communities that want a decentralized alternative to commercial search.

Marginalia Search is the source code of an independent internet search engine that indexes the small, old, and unusual parts of the web. The project describes itself as an experimental workshop as much as a public service, developing alternative ways to discover content and elevating the more human, non-commercial side of the Internet. It is written in Java, and the input lists its license only as other.

A side goal is to run the operation on affordable hardware with minimal operational overhead instead of datacenters. The system can run as a copy of Marginalia itself or as a white-label search engine over your own data, whether crawled or side-loaded, though its logic is not yet very configurable and reflects the project's goals. Setup uses run/setup.sh to download supplementary model data, and a local test environment is described in the repository.

The long-term plan is to be funded through grants, donations, and commercial API licenses, while non-commercial share-alike use remains free. Documentation is at docs.marginalia.nu and a public instance runs at marginalia-search.com. It suits people who value the small web and developers curious about building a search engine.

Mwmbl is a non-profit, open-source search engine that aims to replace commercial engines such as Google and Bing with a community-run alternative. It promises no ads, no tracking, and no profit, and it lets the community determine rankings. The code is written in Python and released under the AGPL-3.0 license.

The index is centralized, but the crawling is distributed across servers run by volunteers, who also help curate search results. The README is candid that the index is currently much smaller than those of commercial search engines and invites people to help it grow by contributing crawling capacity.

The main community gathers on Matrix, with a Discord server for non-development discussion. Mwmbl suits privacy-minded users and developers who want to experiment with independent search, and who are willing to accept more limited coverage in exchange for a transparent, non-commercial project.