AgentIndex icon
AgentIndex
hister logo
hister
★ 6.1k
vs
ken logo
ken
★ 33

hister vs ken

hister: Hister is a privacy-focused, full-text search engine that indexes visited websites and local files. It offers advanced query language, multi-user support, AI-enhanced semantic search, and fast indexing via a headless browser or crawler.; ken: Ken is a pure Go port of semble, providing fast hybrid code search for agents with drop-in MCP compatibility. It offers a single static binary distribution, approximately 44x fewer tokens than grep+Read at recall@10, and supports indexing source code and documentation. The retrieval algorithm is a verbatim port of semble's hybrid BM25 + Model2Vec approach.

01

TL;DR

hister logo
histerRAG / Knowledge Base · ★ 6.1k

Personal search engine for browsing history

Read hister full review →
ken logo
kenRAG / Knowledge Base · ★ 33

Agent code search: quickly find relevant code chunks across large codebases

Read ken full review →
02

Side-by-Side Comparison

Field
hister logohister
ken logoken
Category
RAG / Knowledge Base
RAG / Knowledge Base
Stars
★ 6.1k
★ 33
License
AGPL-3.0
MIT
Install Command
git clone https://github.com/asciimoo/hister.git && cd hister && ./manage.sh build
go install github.com/townsendmerino/ken/cmd/ken@latest && go install github.com/townsendmerino/ken/cmd/ken-mcp@latest && ken download-model
Updated
1d ago
1d ago
Open Source
Yes
Yes
Website
↗ Visit
↗ Visit
GitHub
↗ GitHub
↗ GitHub
Tags
go, golang, history
agents, bm25, code-search
03

Features

hister logohister
01Privacy-focused
02Full-text indexing
03Advanced search capabilities
04Local file indexing
05Crawler
ken logoken
01Pure Go, no cgo; single static binary with free cross-compilation
02Drop-in MCP-compatible with semble (same tool schemas and output format)
03Verbatim port of semble's hybrid BM25 + Model2Vec retrieval algorithm
04Measured ~44x fewer tokens than grep+Read at recall@10 on agent queries
05Fast cold start (~10–20ms for small indexes)
04

Use Cases

hister logohister
↳Personal search engine for browsing history
↳Private indexing of local knowledge bases
↳Community search engine with multi-user support
ken logoken
↳Agent code search: quickly find relevant code chunks across large codebases
↳Embedded-corpus distribution: ship documentation as a single static binary with zero infrastructure
↳Database schema indexing: index live Postgres/SQLite/MySQL schemas for agent context
FAQ

FAQ

What is the difference between hister and ken?
Both hister and ken are in the RAG / Knowledge Base category. hister has 6.1k stars, while ken has 33 stars.
Which is better, hister or ken?
The best choice depends on your use case. Choose hister if Personal search engine for browsing history, and ken if Agent code search: quickly find relevant code chunks across large codebases.
Is hister free or open source?
Yes, hister is open source on GitHub (AGPL-3.0).
Is ken free or open source?
Yes, ken is open source on GitHub (MIT).
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Related

Alternatives to hister →Alternatives to ken →hister details →ken details →