Stract

Open-source, non-profit search engine building its own index with a focus on user-customizable ranking and transparency.

By Nathan KesslerUpdated May 8, 2026

Each tool is evaluated against our methodology using public docs, vendor demos, and hands-on testing.

Independent web indexes maintain their own crawl of the web, separate from Google or Bing. This independence is valuable for AI applications that need unbiased search results, want to avoid rate limits on commercial search engines, or need specialized coverage. Several of these indexes are open source, allowing full transparency into how results are ranked.

Visit Stract →

Features

—JS Rendering

✓Structured Output

✓Open Source

✓Self-Hosted Option

Pricing:Free

Editorial assessment

The fully open-source search engine vision – user-configurable ranking signals, transparent algorithms, and a growing independent index. Philosophically aligned with how search should work. Extremely early-stage with a small index. Not viable as a primary search source for production applications. More of a research project and ideological statement than a production tool today.

How Stract compares

Mojeek

Mojeek has a more mature independent index if you want privacy-first search that actually works today.

Common Crawl

Common Crawl offers raw web data at massive scale if you want to build your own search.

See full Stract alternatives comparison →

Weekly briefing — tool launches, legal shifts, market data.

Visit

Stract

Visit →