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SearXNG

What it is

SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from more than 70 search services (engines).

What problem it solves

It provides a private, decentralized search experience by acting as a proxy between you and major search engines like Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. It strips tracking cookies and personal data from your requests, preventing search engines from profiling you.

Where it fits in the stack

Category: Services / Search & Discovery. It serves as a privacy-preserving front-end for web search within a homelab or private network.

Typical use cases

  • Private web searching without tracking or profiling.
  • Aggregating results from multiple engines into a single interface.
  • Providing a search API for local AI agents (e.g., using SearXNG as a tool for an LLM).
  • Self-hosting search for a home or small office network.

Strengths

  • Privacy-First: No tracking, no profiling, no cookies.
  • Aggregated Results: Combines results from 70+ engines.
  • Customizable: Extensive settings for engines, categories, and UI.
  • Self-Hostable: Easy to deploy via Docker.
  • Open API: Provides search results in JSON format for programmatic use.

Limitations

  • Upstream Reliability: If an upstream engine (like Google) blocks SearXNG's IP, results from that engine may be missing.
  • Maintenance: Requires occasional updates to keep engine scrapers functioning.

When to use it

  • When you value privacy and want to avoid being tracked by major search engines.
  • When you want to combine results from multiple niche engines.
  • When building local AI tools that need to search the web.

When not to use it

  • If you rely heavily on personalized search results or localized features that require tracking.
  • If you don't want to manage your own search infrastructure.

Getting started

Installation (Docker Compose)

services:
  searxng:
    image: searxng/searxng:latest
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      - ./searxng:/etc/searxng
    environment:
      - SEARXNG_SETTINGS_PATH=/etc/searxng/settings.yml
    restart: always

Hello World (Web)

  1. Start the SearXNG container.
  2. Navigate to http://localhost:8080.
  3. Type a query in the search bar and press Enter to see aggregated results.

CLI examples

SearXNG is primarily a web service, but you can interact with it via curl to test the API or retrieve results.

curl "http://localhost:8080/search?q=open+source+llm&format=json"

curl (Specific Category)

curl "http://localhost:8080/search?q=sunset&categories=images&format=json"

curl (Specific Engine)

curl "http://localhost:8080/search?q=SearXNG&engines=wikipedia&format=json"

API examples

import requests

url = "http://localhost:8080/search"
params = {
    "q": "Model Context Protocol",
    "format": "json"
}

response = requests.get(url, params=params)
results = response.json()

for result in results.get('results', []):
    print(f"Title: {result['title']}")
    print(f"URL: {result['url']}\n")

Python (Using with LangChain)

SearXNG can be used as a search tool for AI agents. 

from langchain_community.utilities import SearxSearchWrapper

search = SearxSearchWrapper(searx_host="http://localhost:8080")
results = search.run("What is vLLM?")
print(results)

Licensing and cost

  • Open Source: Yes (AGPL-3.0)
  • Cost: Free
  • Self-hostable: Yes
  • Perplexity (AI-powered search)
  • DuckDuckGo (Privacy-focused search)
  • n8n (For search automation)
  • Ollama (To use SearXNG results with local LLMs)
  • JSON-LD (Metadata standard used in results)

Sources / References

Contribution Metadata

  • Last reviewed: 2026-06-05
  • Confidence: high