Overview
SearXNG aggregates results from around 270 search engines without personalising or tracking, and its JSON output format is what makes it interesting for content work — a research agent can run search, dedupe, extract and brief without paying per query or getting a profile-shaped SERP. One caveat decides whether it is usable for you: JSON is off by default. The shipped settings.yml enables only HTML output, most public instances return 403 for format=json, and turning it on means self-hosting and editing config. It has no company behind it and ships no AI of its own; several third-party MCP servers exist but none are official.
Key Features
- ✓Metasearch across roughly 270 engines with no tracking
- ✓Documented JSON search API for LLM research pipelines
- ✓Self-hosted, so no per-query cost or rate-limit billing
- ✓Community third-party MCP servers available (none official)
- ✓AGPL-3.0 licensed, volunteer-maintained
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