Frequently asked questions

Is searx in maintenance mode?

No, searx is accepting new features, including new engines. We are also adding engine fixes or other bug fixes when needed. Also, keep in mind that searx is maintained by volunteers who work in their free time. So some changes might take some time to be merged.

We reject features that might violate the privacy of users. If you really want such a feature, it must be disabled by default and warn users about the consequances of turning it off.

What is the difference between searx and SearxNG?

TL;DR: SearXNG is for users that want more features and bugs getting fixed quicker. If you prefer a minimalist software and stable experience, use searx.

SearxNG is a fork of searx, created by a former maintainer of searx. The fork was created because the majority of the maintainers at the time did not find the new proposed features privacy respecting enough. The most significant issue is with engine metrics.

Searx is built for privacy conscious users. It comes with a unique set of challenges. One of the problems we face is that users rather not report bugs, because they do not want to publicly share what engines they use or what search query triggered a problem. It is a challenge we accepted.

The new metrics feature collects more information to make engine maintenance easier. We could have had better and more error reports to benefit searx maintainers. However, we believe that the users of searx must come first, not the software. We are willing to compromise on the lack of issue reports to avoid violating the privacy of users.

Furthermore, SearxNG is under heavy refactoring and dependencies are constantly updated, even if it is unnecessary. It increases the risk of introducing regressions. In searx we strive for stability, rather than moving fast and breaking things.

Is searx for me?

Are you privacy conscious user? Then yes.

In searx we decided to double down on being privacy respecting. We are picking engine changes from SearxNG, but we are not implementing engine detailed monitoring and not adding a new UI that relies on Javascript.

If you are willing to give up some privacy respecting features, we encourage you to adopt SearxNG. Searx is targeted for privacy conscious users who run their instances locally, instead of using public instances.

Why should I use SearxNG?

SearxNG has rolling releases, dependencies updated more frequently, and engines are fixed faster. It is easy to set up your own public instance, and monitor its performance and metrics. It is simple to maintain as an instance administrator.

As a user, it provides a prettier user interface and nicer experience.

Project Name	Stars	Packages Using This	Most Recent Commit	Total Releases	Latest Release	Open Issues	License	Language
Gitin	1,840	1	3 months ago	12	April 18, 2021	3	bsd-3-clause	Go
commit/branch/workdir explorer for git
Finch	191		2 months ago			1	other	Swift
A configurable command line tool to easily create and format version changelogs
Saka	184		a year ago	2	December 09, 2016	37	mit	JavaScript
Elegant tab, bookmark and history search
Clouseau	95		4 years ago			15	other	Python
Search your repository's git history for undesirable text patterns such as passwords, ssh keys and othe personal identifiable information
Searchcmd	86		7 years ago	1	June 14, 2015	1	bsd-3-clause	DIGITAL Command Language
Search the internets for commands from the command line.
Arxiv Search	45		3 months ago			29	mit	Python
arXiv Search UI & APIs
Pipgh	33		3 years ago	4	February 06, 2016	3	mit	Python
A tool to search and install Python packages from Github.
Bitshift	29		3 years ago			18	mit	Python
A semantic search engine for source code
Poirot	29		7 years ago			1	mit	Python
:mag: CLI to search a Git repo's revision history for text patterns (e.g. passwords, tokens, IP addresses, and names)
Git Mob Vs Code	29		10 days ago			8	mit	JavaScript
Co-author commits. A quick way to add co-author metadata to a Git commit via VS Code source control panel.