head to head · open source
SearXNG vs Quickwit
SearXNG has 39,138 GitHub stars, 3,572 forks, 215 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Quickwit has 11,760 stars, 623 forks, 815 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SearXNG leads on adoption by 233% (39,138 vs 11,760 stars). SearXNG is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; Quickwit is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. SearXNG has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Quickwit 5%. Quickwit was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (search-engine), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| SearXNG | Quickwit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 12K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.6K | ⑂ 623 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick SearXNG if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Quickwit if
- You want the Quickwit feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Quickwit fits your workflow better
About SearXNG
.. SPDX License Identifier: AGPL 3.0 or later .. metasearch engine: .. Installation guide: .. Configuration guide: .. CONTRIBUTING: .. LICENSE: .. figure:: :target: :alt: SearXNG :width: 512px SearXNG is a metasearch engine . Users are neither tracked nor profiled. .. image:: :target: :alt: Organization .. image:: :target: :alt: Documentation .. image:: :target: :alt: License .. image:: :target: :alt: Commits .. image:: :target: :alt: Translated Setup ===== To install SearXNG, see Installation guide . To fine tune SearXNG, see Configuration guide . Further information on how to can be found here . Connect…
read the full SearXNG overview →
About Quickwit
Open source search engine for observability (logs, traces, and soon metrics!). Quickstart Docs Tutorials Chat Download We just released Quickwit 0.8! Read the blog post to learn about the latest powerful features! Quickwit is the fastest search engine on cloud storage. It's the perfect fit for observability use cases Log management Distributed tracing Metrics support is on the roadmap 🚀 Quickstart Search and analytics on Stack Overflow dataset Trace analytics with Grafana Distributed tracing with Jaeger 💡 Features Full text search and aggregation queries Elasticsearch compatible API, use Quickwit with any…
read the full Quickwit overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is SearXNG or Quickwit more popular?
SearXNG has 39,138 GitHub stars and Quickwit has 11,760. SearXNG has the larger community by that measure.
Are SearXNG and Quickwit free?
Both are open source. SearXNG is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Quickwit under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between SearXNG and Quickwit?
SearXNG is written in Python and Quickwit in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, SearXNG or Quickwit?
Choose SearXNG if you want the larger community (39,138 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Quickwit if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.