Search & Indexing Engines

10 self-hosted open source alternatives in this category

Meilisearch

Fast, typo-tolerant search engine for apps and websites

Open-source search engine delivering fast, typo-tolerant full-text search with relevance tuning, filtering, faceting, and REST APIs for easy app integration.

Alternative to:

Google Search+2

Paperless-ngx

Document management with OCR and full‑text search

35.4k

2.2k

Last commit: 2d ago

Self-hosted document management system that ingests scans and emails, performs OCR, extracts metadata, and provides fast full-text search with tags and workflows.

Alternative to:

Adobe Acrobat+7

SearXNG

Privacy-respecting metasearch engine you can run yourself

24k

2.4k

Last commit: 7d ago

SearXNG is a privacy-focused metasearch engine that aggregates results from many search providers, with strong customization, multiple output formats, and API support.

Alternative to:

Google Search+3

Whoogle

A privacy-focused, self-hosted Google search frontend

11.3k

Last commit: 11d ago

Self-hosted metasearch-style frontend that proxies Google Search results while reducing tracking, removing ads, and enabling country/safe-search controls.

Alternative to:

Google Search

Tube Archivist

Your self-hosted YouTube media server and archiving pipeline

7.4k

350

Last commit: 3d ago

Download, index, and stream YouTube channels/playlists with full-text search, metadata, and a web UI powered by yt-dlp and Elasticsearch.

Alternative to:

YouTube+6

Bitmagnet

Self-hosted BitTorrent DHT crawler and torrent metadata indexer

3.8k

201

Last commit: 6mo ago

Bitmagnet crawls the BitTorrent DHT to collect torrent metadata and provides a searchable index and API for discovery and automation workflows.

Alternative to:

Google Search+1

Papra

Personal document manager for scanning, OCR, and full-text search

3.2k

158

Last commit: 2d ago

Papra is a self-hosted document management app for organizing scanned documents with OCR, tagging, and full‑text search in a clean web UI.

Alternative to:

Notion+7

Redlib

Privacy-focused web front-end for Reddit

204

Last commit: 25d ago

Redlib is a fast, lightweight alternative web UI for browsing Reddit without JavaScript or tracking, supporting RSS feeds, theming, and optional proxying of media.

Alternative to:

Papermerge

Document management with OCR and full-text search

2.8k

300

Last commit: 1mo ago

Self-hosted document management system that imports scans/PDFs, performs OCR, and provides full-text search, tagging, and folder-based organization for a paperless workflow.

Alternative to:

Adobe Acrobat+7

Docspell

Document management with OCR, tagging, and full-text search

154

Last commit: 23d ago

Docspell is a document management system that organizes scanned/imported files with OCR, metadata extraction, tagging, and full-text search, plus automated ingest workflows.

Alternative to:

Evernote+7