hister
Hister is a general-purpose web search engine that automatically builds a full-text index of the websites you visit, so you can search the actual content of pages from your own browsing history instead of relying on a remote search engine. The README emphasises privacy: your history is indexed locally.
Features listed are full-text indexing, a query language for precise searches, indexing of a local knowledge base, a crawler that can use a headless browser or a traditional crawler to extend the index quickly, multi-user support so you can host it for a local community, and optional AI features: semantic search or connecting agents through MCP. To build it you need the latest Go and npm (`./manage.sh build`), and a dev mode runs a Vite server with hot reload next to the Go backend. The README is brief and points to the documentation site. The code is AGPL-3.0 or later.
Features
Why choose it
Trade-offs
Maintenance check
- Last commit
- 2026-10-20
- Commits, last 90 days
- 100+
- Releases, last 90 days
- 4
- Latest release
- rolling (2026-02-23)
- Open issues
- 61
- Recent issues with at least one comment
- 10/17
Oldest week on the left; the latest four weeks are orange. Source: GitHub commit activity.
Status rule: archived on GitHub = Archived; last commit within 90 days = Active; 91 to 365 days = Slowing; older = Stale. All figures come from the GitHub API on the date shown.
Most discussed open issues
- #305 Extractors wanted!24 comments · 2026-04-09
- #408 GitHub's service has been deteriorating23 comments · 2026-05-12
- #49 Safari Support20 comments · 2026-02-15
- #636 Native MacOS launchd setup for non-nix users12 comments · 2026-08-24
- #326 Feature - Edit Title for entries in "History"7 comments · 2026-04-14
Issue titles are quoted from GitHub. Open the link to check whether a problem still applies to the version you use.
Compatibility
Quick start
Use cases
Alternatives
Comments
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