What is IPFS Search used for?

IPFS Search is an open-source search engine for the Interplanetary Filesystem (IPFS) that crawls and indexes files and directories. It is a good fit for searching content on IPFS and running your own IPFS search index.

Is IPFS Search open source?

Yes. IPFS Search is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at ipfs-search/ipfs-search and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. IPFS Search is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.

Can I self-host IPFS Search?

Yes. IPFS Search can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What are some alternatives to IPFS Search?

Similar open-source tools in the Search category include Hister, YaCy and Marginalia Search. SaaS products in the same category include Mojeek, Elastic and AddSearch.

Is IPFS Search actively maintained?

The most recent commit to IPFS Search was on 27 October 2023. The project has 905 stars on GitHub.

IPFS Search: open-source search

About IPFS Search

ipfs-search is a search engine for the Interplanetary Filesystem. It listens to the gossip between IPFS nodes to discover file and directory hashes, then fetches and indexes their metadata and contents so that content on the network can be searched by keyword.

The command consists of two components: a sniffer that extracts hashes from node gossip and a crawler that processes those hashes and indexes them. Metadata and content extraction is done with ipfs-tika, search runs on OpenSearch, and work is queued with RabbitMQ. The crawler is written in Go, while the API and front end are built with Node.js, and a REST API is documented with OpenAPI.

Dependencies include Go, OpenSearch, RabbitMQ, Node.js, IPFS and Redis, and the simplest way to run it is Docker, which starts the crawler, sniffer and dependencies. The project provides daily snapshots of indexed data and documentation on Read the Docs. It is AGPL-3.0 licensed, and its maintainers say running such an engine takes considerable resources and welcome help.

Key features

Sniffs IPFS gossip to discover content hashes
Crawler indexes files and directories
Metadata extraction through ipfs-tika
OpenSearch-powered full-text search
RabbitMQ job queue
REST API with OpenAPI docs
Daily snapshots of indexed data

Good fit for

→Searching content on IPFS
→Running your own IPFS search index

Built with: Go
Tags: ipfs; search-engine; opensearch; rabbitmq; golang; crawler; decentralized; elasticsearch

IPFS Search: questions and answers

What is IPFS Search used for?: IPFS Search is an open-source search engine for the Interplanetary Filesystem (IPFS) that crawls and indexes files and directories. It is a good fit for searching content on IPFS and running your own IPFS search index.
Is IPFS Search open source?: Yes. IPFS Search is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at ipfs-search/ipfs-search and is written mainly in Go.
Is IPFS Search free?: Yes. IPFS Search is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.
Can I self-host IPFS Search?: Yes. IPFS Search can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What are some alternatives to IPFS Search?: Similar open-source tools in the Search category include Hister, YaCy and Marginalia Search. SaaS products in the same category include Mojeek, Elastic and AddSearch.
Is IPFS Search actively maintained?: The most recent commit to IPFS Search was on 27 October 2023. The project has 905 stars on GitHub.