What is Lnx used for?

Lnx is a fast REST search engine built on tantivy and written in Rust, offering typo-tolerant queries, per-index transactions and token-based permissions. It is a good fit for adding search-as-you-type to an application and running a lightweight self-hosted search service.

Yes. Lnx is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at lnx-search/lnx and is written mainly in Rust.

Yes. Lnx is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

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

What is Lnx an alternative to?

Lnx is an open-source alternative to Algolia and Elastic. Other open-source alternatives to Algolia include Manticore Search, RediSearch and SeekStorm.

Is Lnx actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Lnx was on 14 October 2025, and the latest release is 0.9.0-master, published on 5 October 2022. The project has 1.5k stars on GitHub.

Lnx: open-source alternative to Algolia, Elastic

About Lnx

lnx is a search database that exposes the tantivy search engine through a REST API. It is written in Rust on top of the tokio runtime and the hyper web framework, and is presented as a conventional, fast full-text search service rather than an AI-driven one. It is aimed at developers who need search-as-you-type for their applications and want indexing that is quick enough that new documents are searchable almost immediately.

Features include a complex query parser, typo-tolerant fuzzy queries, a fast-fuzzy mode that uses pre-computed spell correction, more-like-this queries, ordering by field, and several options for tuning performance. Thread counts for the async runtime, concurrency pool, readers and writers can be set per index, and each index supports transactions. Permission-based access tokens control authorization, and multiple storage backends are available for testing and development.

The README warns that the main branch is the active development line and points to the 0.9.0 tag as the latest stable release. lnx is MIT licensed, and users with large datasets are invited to open an issue. It is a self-run service rather than a hosted product.

Key features

REST search engine on top of tantivy
Typo-tolerant fuzzy and fast-fuzzy queries
More-like-this queries
Per-index transactions
Token-based permissions
Per-index thread and performance tuning

Good fit for

→Adding search-as-you-type to an application
→Running a lightweight self-hosted search service

Built with: Rust
Tags: search; search-engine; rust; tantivy; rest-api; full-text-search; fuzzy-search; database

Lnx: questions and answers

What is Lnx used for?: Lnx is a fast REST search engine built on tantivy and written in Rust, offering typo-tolerant queries, per-index transactions and token-based permissions. It is a good fit for adding search-as-you-type to an application and running a lightweight self-hosted search service.
Is Lnx open source?: Yes. Lnx is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at lnx-search/lnx and is written mainly in Rust.
Is Lnx free?: Yes. Lnx is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Lnx?: Yes. Lnx can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Lnx an alternative to?: Lnx is an open-source alternative to Algolia and Elastic. Other open-source alternatives to Algolia include Manticore Search, RediSearch and SeekStorm.
Is Lnx actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Lnx was on 14 October 2025, and the latest release is 0.9.0-master, published on 5 October 2022. The project has 1.5k stars on GitHub.