What is SearX used for?

SearX is a privacy-respecting metasearch engine that queries many search services at once without tracking users; the listed website now points to the related Hister project. It is a good fit for running a private search front end and reducing dependence on one search provider.

Is SearX open source?

Yes. SearX is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at searx/searx and is written mainly in Python.

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

Can I self-host SearX?

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

What is SearX an alternative to?

SearX is an open-source alternative to Startpage, DuckDuckGo, Google Search and Bing. Other open-source alternatives to Startpage include SearXNG, Degoog and YaCy.

Is SearX actively maintained?

The most recent commit to SearX was on 14 May 2026, and the latest release is v1.1.0, published on 7 August 2022. The project has 14k stars on GitHub.

SearX: open-source alternative to Startpage, DuckDuckGo

About SearX

Searx is a self-hostable metasearch engine written in Python. It sends a user's query to many search services at once and presents the combined results without storing or profiling the person searching. It is released under the AGPL-3.0 license, and the repository carries only a short description.

The website listed for this entry, hister.org, actually belongs to Hister, a different project that describes itself as a private, self-hosted search engine for the pages you visit and the files you keep, searchable from the web, a terminal, the command line, or MCP. It is not the Searx site. Searx development has also largely continued in forks, so check the repository for the current maintenance state before choosing it.

Metasearch tools like Searx suit privacy-minded individuals and organizations that want to run their own search front end, reduce reliance on a single provider, and avoid advertising-driven result tracking.

Key features

Aggregates results from many search engines
Does not track or profile users
Self-hostable Python application
Runs your own private search instance

Good fit for

→Running a private search front end
→Reducing dependence on one search provider

Built with: Python
Tags: metasearch; search-engine; privacy; self-hosted; python; aggregator

SearX: questions and answers

What is SearX used for?: SearX is a privacy-respecting metasearch engine that queries many search services at once without tracking users; the listed website now points to the related Hister project. It is a good fit for running a private search front end and reducing dependence on one search provider.
Is SearX open source?: Yes. SearX is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at searx/searx and is written mainly in Python.
Is SearX free?: Yes. SearX is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host SearX?: Yes. SearX can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is SearX an alternative to?: SearX is an open-source alternative to Startpage, DuckDuckGo, Google Search and Bing. Other open-source alternatives to Startpage include SearXNG, Degoog and YaCy.
Is SearX actively maintained?: The most recent commit to SearX was on 14 May 2026, and the latest release is v1.1.0, published on 7 August 2022. The project has 14k stars on GitHub.