SearXNG
A private metasearch engine - 200+ engines, no tracking. Your search homepage and your RAG backend.
One-click deploy, from $5/mo on a Miget plan.
#what is SearXNG?
SearXNG is a privacy-respecting metasearch engine: it queries 200+ search engines and blends the results, with no tracking, no profiling, and no ads. Use it as your own search homepage that never builds a profile on you, on your own domain.
It is also the standard web-search backend for AI: point this catalogue’s open-webui, litellm, dify, or flowise at it to give models live web results, keeping the queries on your own infrastructure instead of a third-party search API.
The image self-serves HTTP on port 5000 via SEARXNG_PORT - no separate proxy needed. Set a secret so sessions survive restarts; for a public, rate-limited instance, add a managed Valkey. Otherwise it is a single light container.
Upstream project: SearXNG
#what you get
- Aggregates 200+ engines; no tracking, no ads, no profiling
- Great private search homepage on your own domain
- A clean web-search backend for RAG and AI agents
- Self-serves HTTP on port 5000 - no proxy needed
- Optional managed Valkey for rate-limiting public instances
- AGPL-3.0, light footprint
#topology
| Service | Role | Public |
|---|---|---|
| searxng | metasearch engine (:5000) | yes (or private for RAG) |
| config volume | settings.yml + cache | no |
#miget sizing
// this stack needs
512 MiB RAM · 3 GB disk · 1 service
512 MiB is comfortable for a personal or RAG instance. Add a managed Valkey and SEARXNG_LIMITER=true only if you expose it publicly and want rate-limiting.
Hobby - recommended fit
$5/mo
1 vCPU · 512 MiB · 10 GiB disk
Headroom for your own apps: 1 GiB at $7/mo
Professional - production
$22/mo
1 vCPU · 2 GiB · 10 GiB disk
Dedicated resources, production SLOs - plan details
One Miget plan is a fixed pool of compute - the whole stack (managed databases included) deploys inside it, and anything left over runs your other apps. No per-service or per-seat math.
#vs. the managed service
What the hosted equivalents charge, against the flat Miget plan this stack fits on. Prices as of June 2026, sources linked.
| Service | Plan | Monthly | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| SearXNG on Miget ★ | 512 MiB plan | $5 | this whole stack, flat - no usage meters, and room left for your own apps |
| Kagi | Professional | ~$10 | $10/mo for private search |
Kagi charges for private search; SearXNG is free software giving you private metasearch on your own domain (and a RAG backend).
#vs. other PaaS
Estimated monthly cost of running this exact stack (512 MiB RAM, 3 GB disk, 1 container) elsewhere, from published June 2026 rates.
| Platform | Est. monthly | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Miget ★ | $5 flat | compose stacks first-class: one deploy, dedicated vCPU, managed Postgres/Valkey, volumes and TLS all included in the plan |
| Heroku | ~$25 | no volumes; nothing between 1 GB ($50) and 2.5 GB ($250) dynos - 2 GB containers cost far more than shown |
| DO App Platform | ~$11 | no persistent volumes - stateful containers need managed DBs/Spaces (base $5 Spaces included here) |
| Render | ~$8 | per-service instances (0.5 GB $7, 2 GB $25) - every container is its own paid service |
| Railway | ~$5 | usage-based ($10/GB RAM-mo); vCPU billed separately at $20/vCPU-mo on top |
| Fly.io | ~$3 | cheapest sticker price - but burstable shared CPUs (1/16 core; dedicated vCPUs cost ~2-3×), no compose deploys (one app per container, manual wiring), managed DBs billed extra |
Full breakdown of what SearXNG costs managed versus self-hosted, with production sizing: SearXNG pricing.
Estimates assume RAM fully allocated at published on-demand rates - and sticker price isn't the whole comparison: the cheaper rows buy burstable shared CPUs, per-service wiring instead of a compose deploy, and managed databases billed separately. Heroku and DO App Platform have no persistent volumes at all - stateful stacks like this one need workarounds there.
#deploy it
On Miget
- Create a Compose Stack in app.miget.com pointing at the templates repository
- Set the stack path to
searxng -
Set the required variables:
SEARXNG_SECRET, set explicitly so sessions survive restartsSEARXNG_BASE_URL, the https domain, with a trailing slash
- Deploy. Miget layers
compose.miget.yaml(RAM, privacy, volumes, managed services) automatically
Locally first?
Every template is portable, vanilla Docker Compose - the Miget overrides are ignored locally:
git clone https://github.com/deployable-sh/stacks
cd miget-compose-templates/searxng
docker compose up -d Same files, same behavior. The template README covers connection strings and scaling notes.
#faq
Can AI tools use it for web search?
Yes - that is one of its best uses. open-webui, litellm, dify, and flowise all support SearXNG as a web-search tool, so your models get live results while the search queries stay on your own infrastructure.
Do I need Redis or a separate proxy?
No. The image self-serves HTTP on port 5000 (via SEARXNG_PORT) with no extra proxy. A managed Valkey is optional - only needed for the rate-limiter on a public instance.
Why set SEARXNG_SECRET explicitly?
If you do not set it, SearXNG generates a new secret on each restart, which resets sessions. Setting it (a long random string) keeps the instance stable across redeploys on Miget.
#more search & vectors
Ship SearXNG today
One compose stack, 512 MiB of RAM, from $5/month flat, and it runs on your laptop with the same files.