Everyday life
MiniSearch
Search with an AI answer, none of it leaving your browser
★ 585
September 2026
Apache-2.0
Everyday life
What we checked ourselves
Not copied from the project's own blurb. These are things we opened and verified, with the date.
- 9 Sept 2026We checked that the link to the project still resolves.
- 14 Aug 2026We read the licence text itself (null). No unusual restrictions were stated.
- 2 Sept 2026We read the project's own documentation and found no sign that development has stopped.
Where this sits among the 44 tools we list in Everyday life
- No API key required40 of 44
- Commercial use confirmed as allowed29 of 44
- Requires terminal commands26 that do not →
- Sends your input to the provider20 that do not →
Only 26 of the 44 meet all of the conditions above.
Counted from our own checks: every tool we list is examined against the same criteria.
What it does
A self-hosted search engine with an assistant that runs inside the tab, on GPU or CPU — no API key, no inference server, nobody else seeing your queries. Results come from a bundled SearXNG instance and are reranked locally; history and chats stay in browser storage. Ships as one Docker container, with a hosted demo that was running on 2026-08-18. The in-browser models run 135M to 4B, so answers are rougher than a hosted service — follow the sources. Apache-2.0.
Summary based on the project's own description. The Japanese page has a fuller beginner guide: setup difficulty, what to prepare, and a step-by-step start.
Screenshots & visuals
Before you start
- Setup difficultySome setup needed
- Command lineRequired
- API keyNot required
- Sends data onlineYes
Judged automatically from the project's own metadata. Always confirm on the official page.
MiniSearch FAQ
- Is MiniSearch free?
- Yes. It runs on your own machine, so there is no usage-based cost either.
- Do I need to install anything or write code to use MiniSearch?
- It needs the command line. If you are not comfortable typing commands, expect to get stuck during setup.
- Does MiniSearch work on a phone?
- No. It needs a computer.
- Can I use MiniSearch commercially?
- The licence is Apache-2.0, which permits commercial use. Conditions such as keeping the copyright notice still apply, so read the licence text before shipping it inside something.
How it compares
The conditions that decide whether you can actually use it, side by side.
| Tool | Command line | API key | Sends data out | Phone | Commercial use |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MiniSearch (this page) | Required | Not needed | Yes | No | Yes |
| Immich | Required | Not needed | No | No | Yes |
| Stirling-PDF | Required | Not needed | No | No | Yes |
| Home Assistant | Required | Not needed | No | No | Yes |
"Sends data out" means your input is uploaded to someone's server. Pick "No" when the material cannot leave your organisation.