20 Open-search Self-hosted Web and Document Search Engine Solutions

An open-source self-hosted search engine is a search engine that can be hosted on a server and used by an organization to search its own data.

Benefits of Document Search Engines

There are several benefits for an enterprise to use its own search engine, such as:

Control: An enterprise can have complete control over the search engine, including the data that is indexed, the search algorithms used, and the search results displayed.
Customization: An enterprise can customize the search engine to meet its specific needs. For example, it can add custom fields to the search index, create custom search filters, and integrate the search engine with other enterprise applications.
Privacy: An enterprise can ensure the privacy of its data by using a self-hosted search engine. Since the data is hosted on the enterprise's own servers, there is no risk of data leakage to third-party search engines.

Advantages

Using an open-source search engine has several advantages over using a proprietary search engine. Some of these advantages include:

Cost: Open-source search engines are often free to use, which can be a significant cost savings for an enterprise.
Flexibility: Open-source search engines are highly customizable, which means that they can be tailored to meet an enterprise's specific needs.
Community support: Open-source search engines are supported by a large community of developers and users, which means that there is a wealth of knowledge and expertise available to help with any issues that might arise.

Types of Search Engines

Search engines are a crucial tool for finding information on the internet. They help us to quickly and easily find the information we need, whether it be a specific website or a piece of information within a document.

However, not all search engines are created equal. In this blog post, we'll explore the different types of search engines available and their unique features.

1- Web Search Engines

Web search engines are the most common type of search engine. They search the internet for information and display the results to the user. Popular web search engines include Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Web search engines use complex algorithms to crawl and index the vast amount of information available on the internet. They allow users to search for information using keywords or phrases and provide relevant results in a matter of seconds.

2- Meta Search Engines

A metasearch engine is a search engine that searches other search engines to gather its results. Instead of searching the web directly, a metasearch engine aggregates results from other search engines and displays them to the user.

Metasearch engines can be useful for finding information that might be missed by a single search engine, as well as for comparing results from different search engines. Examples of metasearch engines include Dogpile and MetaCrawler.

3- Full-Text Search Engines

A full-text search engine is a search engine that searches for keywords or phrases within the full text of documents. Unlike traditional search engines that only search for the presence of keywords within a document, full-text search engines search the entire text of a document.

Full-text search engines can be useful for finding specific information within large documents or collections of documents, such as a library or a database. Examples of full-text search engines include Elasticsearch and Apache Solr.

4- Document Search Engines

A document search engine is a search engine that is specifically designed to search for and retrieve documents, such as PDFs, Word documents, or other types of files.

Document search engines can be useful for finding specific documents within large collections of files, such as a file server or a document management system. Examples of document search engines include DocFetcher and SearchBlox.

In conclusion, search engines come in many types, each with its own unique features and capabilities. While web search engines are the most common type of search engine, other types such as metasearch engines, full-text search engines, and document search engines can be useful for specific purposes. By understanding the differences between these types of search engines, users can choose the one that is best suited to their needs and find the information they need quickly and easily.

Open-source Free Document Search Engines

1. Meilisearch

Meilisearch helps you shape a delightful search experience in a snap, offering features that work out-of-the-box to speed up your workflow.

2. Weaviate

Weaviate is an open source vector database that stores both objects and vectors, allowing for combining vector search with structured filtering with the fault-tolerance and scalability of a cloud-native database, all accessible through GraphQL, REST, and various language clients.

Tech: Golang.

3- Mwmbl

Mwmbl is a non-profit, ad-free, free-libre and free-lunch search engine with a focus on usability and speed.

At the moment it is little more than an idea together with a proof of concept implementation of the web front-end and search technology on a small index.

Tech: Python.

4- Open source Search Engine

A distributed open source search engine and spider/crawler written in C/C++ for Linux on Intel/AMD.

From gigablast dot com, which has binaries for download.

Tech: C++.

5. DataparkSearch

DataparkSearch is a free and open-source web search engine. It supports various URL schemes, indexes multiple mime types, and offers features such as multilingual support, query expansion, and sorting options.

It also includes an indexer, web CGI front-end, and search module for Apache web server, as well as flexible update scheduling and effective caching for faster search times.

Tech: C.

6. Elasticsearch

Elasticsearch is a powerful and versatile search engine that has been designed to deliver high-speed and highly relevant search results, offering an unparalleled search experience that is fully optimized for real-time search over extremely large datasets.

It is a highly sought-after tool for vector search, full-text search, logs, metrics, APM, and security logs, providing users with a comprehensive and scalable solution that can be tailored to meet the specific needs of their business or organization.

Tech: Java.

7. OpenSearchServer

Open Search Server is a powerful and flexible search engine that offers many benefits over proprietary search engines.

Its customizable indexing and search features, user management system, and extensibility make it a popular choice for businesses, organizations, and individuals who need powerful search functionality without the high costs associated with proprietary search engines.

So why not give it a try and see for yourself how Open Search Server can help you find the data you need.

8. Searx

Searx is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from more than 70 search services. Users are neither tracked nor profiled.

Additionally, searx can be used over Tor for online anonymity.

9. Milvus

Milvus is an open-source vector database built to power embedding similarity search and AI applications.

Milvus makes unstructured data search more accessible, and provides a consistent user experience regardless of the deployment environment.

It is an ideal solution for writing search and content focused applications.

10. Typesense

Typesense is an open-source, typo-tolerant search engine that provides fast and user-friendly search experiences. It uses advanced search algorithms and prioritizes user privacy. W

ith Typesense, you can create a variety of search experiences, including faceted navigation, geo-search, vector search, semantic search, and similarity search.

11. FlexSearch

FlexSearch is a full-text search library that is known for its speed and flexibility. It is capable of handling large amounts of data and has zero dependencies, making it easy to use in a variety of applications.

Tech: JavaScript.

12. Whoogle Search

Whoogle is a self-hosted metasearch engine that lets you search Google without ads, trackers, or AMP links, and without cookie or IP address tracking.

You can deploy Whoogle using Docker, manually, or on Arch Linux, Heroku, or Fly.io. Configuration is simple with a single configuration file.

Tech: Python.

13- OpenSearch

OpenSearch is a community-driven, open source fork of Elasticsearch and Kibana following the license change in early 2021.

We're looking to sustain (and evolve!) a search and analytics suite for the multitude of businesses who are dependent on the rights granted by the original, Apache v2.0 License.

14. Qdran

Qdrant (read: quadrant) is a vector similarity search engine and vector database. It provides a production-ready service with a convenient API to store, search, and manage points—vectors with an additional payload Qdrant is tailored to extended filtering support.

It makes it useful for all sorts of neural-network or semantic-based matching, faceted search, and other applications.

Tech: Rust.

15. Vespa: BigData Search Engine

The open big data serving engine - Store, search, organize and make machine-learned inferences over big data at serving time.

16. TNT Search

TNTSearch is an open-source full-text search engine designed for easy integration with PHP applications. It is built entirely in PHP, which makes it highly portable and easy to use. With its simple configuration, TNTSearch can provide an outstanding search experience for your applications in just a few minutes.

One of the most notable features of TNTSearch is its support for stemming, which allows for more accurate and effective search results.

Currently, TNTSearch supports stemming for several languages, including English, Croatian, Arabic, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, and Ukrainian. This means that users can search for keywords in their native language and still get accurate results.

In addition, TNTSearch offers a range of customization options to suit your specific needs. You can configure the engine to work with different databases, customize the indexing process, and even implement your own search algorithms. With TNTSearch, the possibilities are endless, and you can tailor your search engine to match your exact requirements.

Tech: PHP.

17. miniSearch

MiniSearch is a tiny but powerful in-memory fulltext search engine written in JavaScript. It is respectful of resources, and it can comfortably run both in Node and in the browser.

18. tinysearch

tinysearch is a lightweight, fast, full-text search engine. It is designed for static websites. tinysearch is written in Rust, and then compiled to WebAssembly to run in a browser.

19. Monocle

Monocle is a universal, personal search engine that can query across various types of documents, acting as an extended memory. It is designed with a focus on speed, privacy, and hackability.

20. YaCy

YaCy is a peer-to-peer search engine that allows users to index and search for information on the internet.

Unlike traditional search engines, YaCy does not rely on a centralized server to store and index data. Instead, it uses a distributed network of nodes to index and share data between users.

Conclusion

In conclusion, open-source self-hosted search engines offer a range of benefits for enterprises, including greater control, customization, and privacy.

By leveraging the power of open-source software and custom search engines, enterprises can create a search experience that is tailored to their specific needs.

Finally, custom search engines offer even greater flexibility and control for an enterprise. With a custom search engine, an enterprise can create a search experience that is tailored to the needs of its users. This can include custom search filters, custom search results, and even custom search algorithms.