The pitch for SearXNG is simple: run a metasearch engine on your own box, and Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo answer your queries through a middleman that strips your identity, IP, and cookies before the query ever leaves. Users who make the switch describe going back to a plain search bar as a downgrade, because it is. But SearXNG is not the only way to get there, and for a lot of setups a different tool is a better fit.
We picked seven SearXNG alternatives that cover the range: two other self-hosted metasearch projects, one hosted paid engine, two privacy-focused proxies, and two independent index engines. The angle for each is what changes if you swap SearXNG for it.
Quick comparison
| App | Best for | Model | Free plan | Where it wins |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whoogle Search | Lightweight Google proxy | Self-hosted, open-source | Free | Runs in under 100 MB of RAM |
| YaCy | Fully decentralized search | Self-hosted P2P | Free | No upstream engine at all |
| Kagi | Hosted, ad-free, ranked | Paid subscription | Free trial only | The best ranking money can buy |
| Startpage | Google results via a proxy | Hosted, free | Free | Zero setup, Google index |
| DuckDuckGo | Hosted default | Hosted, free | Free | Familiar, works everywhere |
| Brave Search | Independent index | Hosted, free with paid tier | Free | Own crawler, less reliance on Google |
| Mojeek | Independent, no third parties | Hosted, free | Free | Truly independent index |
Why people leave SearXNG
SearXNG is good, but it has real costs. The most common reasons users go looking:
- Setup pain. It runs in Docker in ten minutes, but keeping an instance updated, patched, and reachable behind a reverse proxy takes recurring attention.
- Upstream captchas. Google and Bing rate-limit metasearch traffic aggressively. A busy instance starts hitting captchas that no amount of proxying will fix.
- Ranking quality. SearXNG returns raw upstream results in a blended list. There is no independent ranking; if all your engines are wrong about a query, the result is still wrong.
- Mobile is awkward. Setting a self-hosted instance as the default search engine on iOS or Android works but breaks whenever the certificate rotates or the local DNS changes.
Each alternative below solves one of those.
Whoogle Search, best for a lightweight Google proxy
Whoogle is the closest project in spirit to SearXNG, only trimmed down and focused entirely on Google. It scrapes Google’s HTML results, strips ads and tracking, and hands back a clean page. The container image is small, the memory footprint is under 100 MB, and the setup is a single environment file.
Where it falls short: Google-only. No Bing, DDG, or Wikipedia results are blended in, and when Google returns a captcha the instance goes dark until it clears. Whoogle also has no long-term maintainer commitment; keep an eye on the release cadence.
Pricing:
- Free, open-source.
- vs SearXNG: cheaper to host, narrower scope.
Migrating from SearXNG: the setup pattern is identical (Docker, reverse proxy, opensearch.xml for the browser). The custom engine config in SearXNG has no counterpart, so any custom engines are lost.
Download: github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search
Bottom line: Pick Whoogle over SearXNG if you only care about Google results and want less to maintain.
YaCy, best for fully decentralized search
YaCy takes the opposite approach: instead of proxying upstream engines, every node runs its own crawler and shares its index over a peer-to-peer network. The result is a search index that is not owned by anyone, cannot be shut off by anyone, and does not require an internet giant on the other end.
Where it falls short: coverage. YaCy’s index is smaller than Google’s by many orders of magnitude, and popular queries return sparse or dated results unless the node has been running (and crawling) for months. Not a drop-in replacement for daily Googling.
Pricing:
- Free, open-source, GPL.
- vs SearXNG: independent index, no upstream, worse coverage.
Migrating from SearXNG: treat YaCy as a second search engine alongside SearXNG rather than a replacement, at least during the ramp-up while the index warms.
Download: yacy.net
Bottom line: Pick YaCy if the goal is search that survives the internet’s giants going down, and you’re willing to trade coverage for that.
Kagi, best for the strongest ranking
Kagi is a hosted, paid search engine that ranks results in ways SearXNG cannot: personal blocklists, elevation of the sites you trust, demotion of the sites you do not, first-party crawlers layered on top of Google and Bing indices. For anyone whose SearXNG frustration is ranking quality rather than privacy, Kagi is the honest answer.
Where it falls short: it is a paid subscription, so the model is not for everyone. Kagi also runs on its own servers, which is a trust choice; nothing is self-hosted.
Pricing:
- Free trial with a small number of queries.
- Starter and Professional tiers run a few dollars per month up to about $10 per month for unlimited.
- vs SearXNG: paid, hosted, ranked. Better answers, less control.
Migrating from SearXNG: Kagi supports import of a bang list and per-domain preferences. There is no configuration to migrate from SearXNG directly.
Download: kagi.com
Bottom line: Pick Kagi if you would pay a subscription to make search better and self-hosting is not a hard requirement.
Startpage, best for zero setup
Startpage is a hosted proxy for Google that has been around for years. Point the browser at Startpage, get Google results, without Google seeing the query. The interface is plain and the results are exactly what Google returns.
Where it falls short: it is hosted, so the trust boundary sits at Startpage’s servers, not at your own. No self-hosting option exists. Some regions have hit rate-limits.
Pricing:
- Free.
- vs SearXNG: no setup, hosted, one engine.
Migrating from SearXNG: set Startpage as the browser’s default search engine and delete the self-hosted instance. Nothing else transfers.
Download: startpage.com
Bottom line: Best pick when SearXNG is more overhead than the privacy gain justifies.
DuckDuckGo, best for the familiar default
DuckDuckGo is the search engine most people will already recognize. Behind the scenes it pulls from Bing and a rotating set of other sources, wraps them in an ad-supported result page, and does not personalize the results by user.
Where it falls short: DuckDuckGo is not a metasearch; the index is largely Bing. If Bing rates a query poorly, DuckDuckGo will too. Some users have called out the tracker-blocker choices in the mobile app.
Pricing:
- Free, ad-supported.
- vs SearXNG: hosted, no setup, narrower blend.
Migrating from SearXNG: browser-level swap. There is no import.
Download: duckduckgo.com
Bottom line: Fine for the phone default if a self-hosted instance is too fragile on mobile. Weaker than SearXNG on the desktop.
Brave Search, best for an independent index
Brave Search operates its own crawler and index. Results come from Brave’s own pages, with a small percentage still supplemented by third-party APIs. Over time the third-party dependency has shrunk. The paid tier removes ads and adds an API for programmatic queries.
Where it falls short: the index is younger than Google’s and shows it on long-tail queries. The Brave brand is polarizing for some users, which is worth naming.
Pricing:
- Free, ad-supported.
- Premium and API tiers run a modest monthly cost.
- vs SearXNG: hosted, independent index, no proxying required.
Migrating from SearXNG: browser default swap. Bangs from Kagi and DuckDuckGo work similarly here.
Download: search.brave.com
Bottom line: Best hosted pick when the goal is to reduce reliance on the Google or Bing indexes, not just proxy them.
Mojeek, best for a fully independent crawler
Mojeek has run its own crawler and index since 2004. There is no third-party API in the loop; results come from Mojeek’s own pages. That makes it the closest thing to an independent search engine among the hosted options.
Where it falls short: the index is small compared to Google or Bing, and long-tail queries surface fewer results. UI is functional, not modern.
Pricing:
- Free.
- Paid API tier for developers.
- vs SearXNG: hosted, one truly independent index.
Migrating from SearXNG: set as the browser default. No config transfer.
Download: mojeek.com
Bottom line: Pick Mojeek if the reason to avoid Google is Google itself, and coverage gaps are an acceptable tradeoff.
How to choose
- If setup pain is the reason to leave: Startpage or DuckDuckGo on the desktop, DuckDuckGo on mobile.
- If captchas are killing the SearXNG instance: Whoogle narrows the surface, or move to hosted Kagi.
- If ranking quality is the frustration: Kagi is the honest answer. Nothing in the self-hosted world touches its ranking today.
- If the point of leaving SearXNG is going further, not further inside: YaCy for decentralized, Mojeek or Brave Search for independent indexes.
- Stay on SearXNG if you already run a homelab, tolerate the maintenance, and value having every dial. The tradeoffs are real but the ceiling is high.
FAQ
Is SearXNG the best private search engine in 2026?
It is the strongest self-hosted metasearch. It is not the strongest ranked search engine; that is Kagi. Different problems, different tools.
Can I import my SearXNG config to another engine?
No. SearXNG’s engine config, category weights, and preferences are specific to it. Nothing in the alternatives above reads that file.
Is Whoogle Search really that much lighter than SearXNG?
Yes. Whoogle runs comfortably in under 100 MB of RAM in a container. SearXNG typically uses several times that once caching and multiple engines are enabled.
Which SearXNG alternative works best on mobile?
DuckDuckGo and Kagi. Both have polished mobile browsers or PWAs, so the default-search-engine setup is stable across OS updates.
Is YaCy a real replacement for Google?
Not by itself. Coverage is much smaller and depends on how long your node has been crawling. Treat it as a supplemental engine.
Should I pay for a search engine?
If ranking quality matters more than the free tier, Kagi is the pick most SearXNG users end up trying. The trial answers the “worth it” question in a couple of days.
