What is SearXNG used for?

SearXNG is a free, privacy-respecting metasearch engine that aggregates results from many search services without tracking or profiling users, designed for self-hosting. It is a good fit for private web search for yourself or a household, offering a privacy-respecting search instance to a community and search backend for tools such as AI assistants.

Is SearXNG open source?

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

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

Can I self-host SearXNG?

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

What is SearXNG an alternative to?

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

Is SearXNG actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to SearXNG was on 2 October 2026. The project has 38k stars on GitHub.

SearXNG: open-source alternative to DuckDuckGo, Startpage

About SearXNG

SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine. It sends your query to many search services and databases, merges the results into one page, and does so without tracking or profiling the people who use it. Topics list engines such as Google, Bing, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Qwant and Startpage among the sources it can combine.

The documentation is organized for both users and administrators. Users get search syntax, a list of configured engines and an explanation of why a private instance matters. Administrators get settings in settings.yml, engine configuration, plugins, a bot-protection limiter, optional Redis or Valkey storage, and installation guides covering containers, an installation script and step-by-step setups with Granian or uWSGI behind NGINX or Apache. A long catalog of engines extends beyond web search to sources such as arXiv, Crossref, GitHub and Mastodon.

SearXNG is written in Python under the AGPL-3.0 license. Because it is meant to be self-hosted, you can run your own instance for yourself or a group; many volunteers also publicly host instances. It appeals to people who want to reduce reliance on any one search engine and keep their queries private.

Key features

Aggregates results from many search engines
No user tracking or profiling
Configurable engines and plugins
Container and script-based installation
Optional Redis or Valkey integration
Bot protection limiter

Good fit for

→Private web search for yourself or a household
→Offering a privacy-respecting search instance to a community
→Search backend for tools such as AI assistants

Built with: Python
Tags: search-engine; metasearch; privacy; self-hosted; python; degoogle; search; tracking-free

SearXNG: questions and answers

What is SearXNG used for?: SearXNG is a free, privacy-respecting metasearch engine that aggregates results from many search services without tracking or profiling users, designed for self-hosting. It is a good fit for private web search for yourself or a household, offering a privacy-respecting search instance to a community and search backend for tools such as AI assistants.
Is SearXNG open source?: Yes. SearXNG is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at searxng/searxng and is written mainly in Python.
Is SearXNG free?: Yes. SearXNG is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host SearXNG?: Yes. SearXNG can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is SearXNG an alternative to?: SearXNG is an open-source alternative to DuckDuckGo, Startpage, Brave Search and Kagi. Other open-source alternatives to DuckDuckGo include Degoog, SearX and YaCy.
Is SearXNG actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to SearXNG was on 2 October 2026. The project has 38k stars on GitHub.