SearXNG: A Private, Ad-Free Metasearch Engine You Control
Ever feel like your search engine knows too much about you? SearXNG offers a refreshing alternative—a privacy-respecting metasearch engine that aggregates results from multiple sources without tracking or profiling you. It’s open-source, self-hostable, and completely ad-free.
With over 21k stars on GitHub, SearXNG is clearly resonating with developers and privacy-conscious users alike. Let’s break down why it’s worth checking out.
What It Does
SearXNG is a metasearch engine—meaning it doesn’t rely on a single search provider. Instead, it queries multiple sources (Google, Bing, Wikipedia, etc.) and combines the results into one clean interface.
Key features:
✔ No tracking – Your searches stay private.
✔ No ads – No targeted ads or sponsored results.
✔ Self-hostable – Run your own instance for full control.
✔ Customizable – Tweak the UI, engines, and filters.
Why It’s Cool
Unlike traditional search engines, SearXNG doesn’t log your queries or build a profile on you. It’s also highly hackable—you can modify the code, add new search providers, or tweak ranking algorithms.
Some neat use cases:
- Privacy-first searching – Avoid surveillance capitalism.
- Research tool – Aggregate unbiased results from multiple sources.
- Dev playground – Fork and customize it for niche search needs.
How to Try It
You don’t need to self-host to test it out—public instances are listed at searx.space.
If you do want to self-host:
- Clone the repo:
git clone https://github.com/searxng/searxng.git - Follow the setup guide.
Final Thoughts
SearXNG is a great option if you’re tired of being tracked or just want a cleaner search experience. For developers, it’s also a fun project to tinker with—whether you’re contributing or spinning up your own customized version.
Give it a spin, and take back control of your searches.