SearXNG

At a glance

SearXNG is an open-source metasearch engine you host yourself. This server points your assistant at it, so searches go through your instance rather than a commercial search API, and it can fetch a result page as Markdown.

If you do not already run SearXNG, a commercial option like Exa is less work.

Made by

Ihor Sokoliuk and contributors

Licence

MIT

Latest version

2.8.1 (25 Oct 2026)

npm package

mcp-searxng

GitHub stars

1.3K

Last commit

26 Oct 2026

Tools

4

Runs on

Your computer

Our check: We ran this exact config on 26 Oct 2026: it started and answered with 4 tools.

What's in the pod: its tools

We found 4 tools when we started it on 26 Oct 2026. Every one of them only reads, so nothing changes unless you act on what it finds.

Grouped and described by us. The README on GitHub lists the inputs each tool takes.

Set it up

Pick your app for the exact snippet and where it goes.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "searxng": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-searxng"
      ],
      "env": {
        "SEARXNG_URL": "http://localhost:8080"
      }
    }
  }
}

claude mcp add-json searxng '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","mcp-searxng"],"env":{"SEARXNG_URL":"http://localhost:8080"}}'

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "searxng": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-searxng"
      ],
      "env": {
        "SEARXNG_URL": "http://localhost:8080"
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "servers": {
    "searxng": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-searxng"
      ],
      "env": {
        "SEARXNG_URL": "http://localhost:8080"
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "searxng": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "mcp-searxng"
      ],
      "env": {
        "SEARXNG_URL": "http://localhost:8080"
      }
    }
  }
}

New to this? See the setup guides for Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop and ChatGPT.

Settings

Names are exactly as the project spells them. Required ones are marked.

What it can touch

Safer setup: Run your own SearXNG instance. A public one sees and may log every query you send.

Before you start

• A running SearXNG instance with JSON output enabled
• Node.js 18 or newer

If it does not work

403 Forbidden from SearXNG

The instance has JSON output turned off or blocks API calls. Enable json under search formats in its settings.yml, or switch on SEARXNG_HTML_FALLBACK.

The tools show up but every search fails

Check SEARXNG_URL points at the SearXNG site itself, not at an MCP address, and that you can reach it from the same machine.

npx fails to start

It needs Node.js 22 or newer. Docker is an alternative that bundles its own Node.

Results are thin or stale

Ask searxng_instance_info which engines are enabled and turn more on in your instance.

Peas in a pod: similar servers

How SearXNG lines up against other browser and web data servers on the shelf.

Questions

Something wrong on this page? Tell us.