Is Alexandria open source?
Yes. Alexandria is an open source project, not a commercial product. The code and the index are meant to be community-owned, which is the point of the effort: building a search index that no single company controls. That openness is also its current limitation. Coverage depends on volunteer and community participation rather than a funded crawling operation. Treat it as a project to follow rather than a vendor to buy from.
How much does Alexandria cost?
Alexandria is free. It is an open, community-owned search index rather than a paid API or hosted service, so there is no pricing tier, per-request charge, or subscription. There is no published pricing page because the model is participation rather than payment. If you need predictable commercial terms, an SLA, or billing support, this is not that kind of offering, and you would look at a commercial index API instead.
Can Alexandria be self-hosted?
Yes. Because it is open source, you can run your own instance rather than relying on a central provider. That suits teams who want full control over their search infrastructure and who are comfortable operating it themselves. The tradeoff is real. The index is early-stage with limited coverage, so self-hosting gets you the architecture and the ideology before it gets you results comparable to an established crawl.
Does Alexandria render JavaScript when crawling pages?
No. Alexandria does not do JavaScript rendering, so content that only appears after client-side scripts run will not be captured the way a headless-browser crawler would capture it. It does produce structured output, which helps when you consume index data programmatically. If your targets are JavaScript-heavy single-page apps and you need the fully rendered DOM, pair it with a rendering layer or pick a tool built for that, since Alexandria focuses on the open index itself.
What is the best alternative to Alexandria and when should I choose it?
Common Crawl is the most practical alternative. It offers a large, well-documented open web crawl that production teams already build on, whereas Alexandria's index is still early and thin. Choose Common Crawl when you need real coverage today for training data or large-scale analysis. Stract is another open option if you want a working search engine. Pick Alexandria only when the open, community-owned model is the specific thing you are evaluating.
How does Alexandria compare to Brave Search API?
They sit at opposite ends. Brave Search API is a commercial, hosted search API with its own independent index, query-based pricing, and documentation aimed at shipping features now. Alexandria is a free, open source index you can self-host, but with limited coverage and no commercial support. Use Brave Search API for production query needs and reliability. Consider Alexandria when the goal is supporting or experimenting with community-owned search rather than serving end users.
