I’ll correct that title before you comment: yes, I still need Google. But the Google I’m talking about is Google.com — the search page. That’s where Google began, and what it was meant to be: a clean engine that surfaces the best, most relevant pages for your query.
Today, that vision is gone. Search is just one small part of a massive ecosystem of services, trackers, and monetized integrations. I can’t really live without Google when you count all that. But I can live without the search engine. Enter SearXNG.
Meet SearXNG
A local search engine that just works
Google search has become a maze. What used to be a list of relevant pages is now a carnival of distractions. In fact, the actual search results feel like a side dish now. You get AI summaries, People also ask boxes, video thumbnails, and Things to know panels. The actual web results now sit halfway down the page. I don’t want all that. I just want the web.
On top of all the clutter, Google isn’t optimizing for discovery anymore because it’s optimizing for itself. Bing and the rest follow the same playbook. But metasearch engines like SearXNG don’t have that baggage. And when you host one locally, it has none of it.
SearXNG is a continuation of the open-source Searx project. It’s a meta search engine, meaning it aggregates results from multiple search engines instead of relying on one. I first installed it for my LLM, but ended up using it as my daily search tool too. It’s refreshingly simple, fast, and private. You can even watch the query unfold in real time as SearXNG sends it to dozens of engines and merges the results.
- Price model
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Free, open-source
- Initial release
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March 27, 2021
- OS
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Server software (Linux, FreeBSD, macOS) and accessible via web client
- Developer
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SearXNG Team
Setting up SearXNG
Easier than you’d think
SearXNG runs anywhere: installation is straightforward on Linux, and on Windows you can use WSL or Docker. Since it’s written in Python, Docker is often the simplest path — just pull the image and run it. If you’ve got a spare Linux server, even better. You can host it under your own domain to make your private search engine accessible remotely.
By default, SearXNG binds to port 8080. If that’s already in use, just change it.
Once it’s running, visit localhost:8080. You’ll see a familiar interface, more Bing than Google but still clean. You’ll notice extra categories Google doesn’t offer: Music, Science, Files, Social Media, and more.
Now, search something under the General tab and you’ll immediately feel the speed. My hardware isn’t faster than Google’s servers, so the only difference is the absence of tracking. Google’s personalization, ad targeting, and AI summaries all add latency. SearXNG skips all that. It’s just search. This is also the reason behind Google Chrome using so much more battery than other iPhone browsers.
Full control over engines
Customize everything
Open the Preferences panel and you’ll see what makes SearXNG different. Under Engines, you can decide exactly where your results come from. Each category can use a different set of upstream engines. You can drop Google entirely, prioritize academic sources, or pull from Creative Commons-only indexes for license-safe images.
The UI and behavior are just as flexible. You can change the default theme, language, or layout; set result counts per page; and edit the CSS if you want a different look. SearXNG also supports plugins. You can add plugins for translation, proxy filtering, or instant answers without touching upstream code. There’s also a SearXNG MCP module that connects your instance with other applications. That’s how I linked mine to my local LLM.
You also control the format. SearXNG can output results as HTML for browsing or JSON for programmatic use. That makes it easy to connect with scripts and browser extensions.
You don’t have to host SearXNG yourself to try it. There’s a public list of instances maintained by the community. You can use any of them directly in your browser, no setup required. They offer the same clean interface and meta-search power — but remember, since these are operated by third parties, your searches pass through someone else’s server. It’s still far more private than Google or Bing, but not as airtight as running your own local instance.
I’ve been using SearXNG for about two weeks and am very happy with this upgrade. I’m not saying everyone should ditch Google. But, if Google Search feels less like a search engine and more like a billboard lately, try hosting your own. You might find, like I did, that you don’t really need Google anymore — not the one at Google.com, anyway.