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Site Search

This page describes some common alternatives for static site search.

Programmable Search Engine by Google​

Google’s programmable search engine is a search tool that crawls your live site and renders results on your website.

Pros​

  • Easy to configure and setup
  • Multi-language support
  • Support for image search
  • Search across a specified collection of sites or pages
  • No daily limits for queries or records.

Cons​

  • Search index is completely managed and hosted on Google servers.

Pagefind​

Pagefind is an open source search tool for static sites. It indexes your built site as a post-build step and serves search results directly from static assets.

Pros​

  • No hosted service or third-party search provider required
  • Works well with static site generators
  • Free and open source
  • Support for multi-language search
  • Fetches index data on demand, which helps it scale better than fully in-browser indexes

Cons​

  • Requires a build step to generate and update the search index
  • Search is limited to content available in the built site
  • UI customization may require some JavaScript and CSS work

Lunr​

Lunr.js is a small, full-text search library for use in the browser. Lunr enables you to provide a great search experience without needing external, server-side, search services.

Pros​

  • Support for offline search
  • No external package dependency
  • Completely free and open source
  • Full power for customization
  • Support for multi-language search
  • Search index is completely managed and hosted by the owner.

Cons​

  • Can be complex to configure and setup (If a team is already using Hugo or Docsy, this should be very easy to setup).
  • Depending on site setup, may require javascript knowledge

DocSearch by Algolia​

DocSearch is a search tool powered by the Algolia search engine that crawls your docs and provides a dropdown search experience on your website.

Pros​

  • Provides front-end widgets out of the box: search input, dynamic positioning of search results, etc.
  • Integrations with popular frameworks
  • Support for multi-language search

Cons​

  • Search index is managed and hosted on Algolia servers
  • To use the free DocSearch program, you must apply and be approved
  • The free DocSearch program requires displaying the "Search by Algolia" logo
  • Less control over indexing and search behavior than self-hosted options

When Is It Best To Use One Over Another?​

If you are looking to create a search capability for your open source project without having to depend on a third-party service, then you should consider using Pagefind. If you need a more custom implementation that runs entirely in the browser, you can also consider Lunr. You can take a look at this custom implementation or Hugo/Docsy implementation to see the different ways we used Lunr to implement search.

If you are looking to create a search engine that not only focuses on the contents of one website (site search), but on a particular topic from multiple sites, then you should consider the Programmable Search Engine (Google search).