SearXNG Public▌
by pwilkin
SearXNG Public offers secure, private web searches with time-range filters, similar to DuckDuckGo browser and DuckDuck G
Queries public SearXNG instances to extract structured search results with time-range filtering and fallback mechanisms for reliable web search capabilities
Both formats append explainx.ai attribution and the canonical URL for this MCP server listing.
best for
- / Developers needing web search without API keys
- / Applications requiring structured web search data
- / Building search features with privacy-focused engines
capabilities
- / Search web content through SearXNG instances
- / Parse HTML search results into JSON format
- / Filter results by time ranges
- / Switch between fallback servers automatically
- / Generate reports on accessible SearXNG instances
- / Configure language preferences for searches
what it does
Searches the web through public SearXNG instances by scraping and parsing HTML results into structured JSON data. Includes fallback servers for reliability when main instances are unavailable.
about
SearXNG Public is a community-built MCP server published by pwilkin that provides AI assistants with tools and capabilities via the Model Context Protocol. SearXNG Public offers secure, private web searches with time-range filters, similar to DuckDuckGo browser and DuckDuck G It is categorized under search web.
how to install
You can install SearXNG Public in your AI client of choice. Use the install panel on this page to get one-click setup for Cursor, Claude Desktop, VS Code, and other MCP-compatible clients. This server runs locally on your machine via the stdio transport.
license
MIT
SearXNG Public is released under the MIT license. This is a permissive open-source license, meaning you can freely use, modify, and distribute the software.
readme
mcp-searxng-public
An MCP server that queries public SearXNG instances, parsing HTML contents into a JSON result
<a href="https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/@pwilkin/mcp-searxng-public"> <img width="380" height="200" src="https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/@pwilkin/mcp-searxng-public/badge" alt="SearXNG Server MCP server" /> </a>Rationale
All the MCP servers for SearXNG that I've seen use "json" as the output format. While that is certainly a faster way to code a SearXNG MCP server, it will make it fail on virtually all public servers since they don't expose the JSON format.
This server will read from up to three public SearXNG servers (using one as main and the others as fallback) and will parse the results into JSON.
Installation
Install via npm install mcp-searxng-public.
If the server is installed, the run configuration is (for Cursor or Cursor-compatible clients) as follows:
{
"SearXNGScraper": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["mcp-searxng-public"],
"capabilities": {
"tool-calls": true
},
"env": {
"SEARXNG_BASE_URL": "https://metacat.online;https://nyc1.sx.ggtyler.dev;https://ooglester.com;https://search.080609.xyz;https://search.canine.tools;https://search.catboy.house;https://search.citw.lgbt;https://search.einfachzocken.eu;https://search.federicociro.com;https://search.hbubli.cc;https://search.im-in.space;https://search.indst.eu",
"DEFAULT_LANGUAGE": "en"
}
}
}
Note: You may need to adjust the env variables, particularly SEARXNG_BASE_URL, to point to your preferred SearXNG instances. The DEFAULT_LANGUAGE can also be set as needed. You can run the report task to get a report on good (accessible) SearXNG instances which you can put in the URLs line.
Usage
The server exposes one endpoint: search. The endpoint takes four arguments:
query- the search querytime_range(optional) - which takes a time range parameter according to the https://docs.searxng.org/dev/search_api.html spec (day,monthoryear).language(optional) - the language code for the search (e.g.,en,es,fr). If not provided, it defaults to the value of theDEFAULT_LANGUAGEenvironment variable. If neither is set, no language parameter is sent to SearXNG.detailed(optional) - if set to "true", performs a more thorough search by querying up to 3 servers and fetching multiple pages of results (pages 1, 2, and 3) from each server, then merging and deduplicating the results.
Returned is an array of objects:
[
{
"url": "https://github.com/searxng/searxng",
"summary": "You can start SearXNG using make run in the terminal or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+B"
},
{
"url": "https://searx.bndkt.io/",
"summary": "Powered by searxng - 2025.3.22+5986629c6 — a privacy-respecting, open metasearch engine Source code | Issue tracker | Engine stats | Public instances | Contact instance maintainer"
},
{
"url": "https://docs.searxng.org/"
"summary": "SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from up to 243 search services. Users are neither tracked nor profiled. Additionally, SearXNG can be used over Tor …"
}
{
"url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SearXNG",
"summary": "SearXNG is federated, and as such is hosted by several instances, public and private. Private instances are hosted on a local network, or run on the user's desktop computer itself, and are …"
}
]
FAQ
- What is the SearXNG Public MCP server?
- SearXNG Public is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server profile on explainx.ai. MCP lets AI hosts (e.g. Claude Desktop, Cursor) call tools and resources through a standard interface; this page summarizes categories, install hints, and community ratings.
- How do MCP servers relate to agent skills?
- Skills are reusable instruction packages (often SKILL.md); MCP servers expose live capabilities. Teams frequently combine both—skills for workflows, MCP for APIs and data. See explainx.ai/skills and explainx.ai/mcp-servers for parallel directories.
- How are reviews shown for SearXNG Public?
- This profile displays 56 aggregated ratings (sample rows for discoverability plus signed-in user reviews). Average score is about 4.5 out of 5—verify behavior in your own environment before production use.
Use Cases▌
Web Research & Information Gathering
Fetch and extract information from websites automatically
Example
Research competitor pricing, scrape product reviews, monitor news mentions
Automate 5-10 hours/week of manual web research
Content Monitoring & Alerts
Track website changes, new content, price updates
Example
Monitor competitor blog for new posts, track stock availability, watch for pricing changes
Stay informed without manual checking, never miss important updates
Data Extraction & Aggregation
Extract structured data from multiple websites
Example
Compile product listings from 10 e-commerce sites, aggregate job postings, collect real estate data
Build datasets 100x faster than manual copying
API-less Integration
Interact with services that don't offer APIs
Example
Check form submissions, validate website functionality, test user flows
Automate interactions with any website, even without API
Implementation Guide▌
Prerequisites
- ›Claude Desktop or Cursor with MCP support
- ›Understanding of web scraping ethics and robots.txt
- ›Rate limiting awareness to avoid overwhelming target sites
- ›Knowledge of legal restrictions on data collection
Time Estimate
20-40 minutes including configuration and testing
Installation Steps
- 1.Install web automation MCP server via npm or pip
- 2.Configure allowed domains and rate limits in MCP config
- 3.Test with simple fetch: 'Get content from example.com'
- 4.Progress to extraction: 'Extract all product prices from this page'
- 5.Set up monitoring: 'Check this URL daily for changes'
- 6.Parse structured data: 'Create CSV from this table'
- 7.Respect robots.txt and rate limits always
Troubleshooting
- ⚠403 Forbidden: Website blocks bots—respect their wishes, use official API instead
- ⚠Rate limit errors: Slow down requests, add delays between fetches
- ⚠Stale data: Target site changed HTML structure—update selectors
- ⚠Timeout errors: Site is slow or blocking—increase timeout, try different user agent
- ⚠JavaScript-rendered content: Use headless browser MCP servers for dynamic sites
Best Practices▌
✓ Do
- +Check robots.txt and respect crawl rules
- +Rate limit requests: 1-2 requests/second maximum
- +Use official APIs when available instead of scraping
- +Identify your bot with descriptive user agent
- +Cache results to minimize repeated requests
- +Handle errors gracefully with retries and fallbacks
- +Validate extracted data for accuracy
✗ Don't
- −Don't scrape sites that explicitly forbid it (robots.txt, ToS)
- −Don't overwhelm servers with rapid requests—use rate limiting
- −Don't scrape personal data without consent and legal basis
- −Don't ignore copyright on extracted content
- −Don't assume HTML structure is stable—handle changes
- −Don't use scraped data for commercial purposes without permission
💡 Pro Tips
- ★Use CSS selectors or XPath for robust data extraction
- ★Set up monitoring alerts for extraction failures (structure changed)
- ★Implement exponential backoff for retries on failures
- ★Store raw HTML for reprocessing if extraction logic changes
- ★Combine with data analysis tools for insights from extracted data
- ★Consider using official APIs or RSS feeds as more stable alternatives
Technical Details▌
Architecture
MCP server handles HTTP requests, HTML parsing, JavaScript rendering (if headless browser), and returns structured data to Claude.
Protocols
- HTTP/HTTPS
- WebSocket (for real-time sites)
- Puppeteer/Playwright (for JavaScript sites)
Compatibility
- Static HTML sites
- JavaScript-rendered SPAs (with headless browser)
- REST APIs
- GraphQL endpoints
When to Use This▌
✓ Use When
Use for research automation, content monitoring, data aggregation from multiple sources, and when official APIs don't exist. Best for read-only information gathering.
✗ Avoid When
Avoid for sites with APIs (use API instead), sites that explicitly forbid scraping, when data is copyrighted, or for login-required content without proper authorization.
Integration▌
- →Scheduled monitoring with change detection
- →Multi-source data aggregation pipelines
- →Fallback to web scraping when API rate limits hit
- →Headless browser for JavaScript-heavy sites
Discussion
Product Hunt–style comments (not star reviews)- No comments yet — start the thread.
List & Promote Your MCP Server
Share your MCP server with the developer community
Ratings
4.5★★★★★56 reviews- ★★★★★Dhruvi Jain· Dec 16, 2024
I recommend SearXNG Public for teams standardizing on MCP; the explainx.ai page compares cleanly with sibling servers.
- ★★★★★Emma Iyer· Dec 16, 2024
SearXNG Public is among the better-indexed MCP projects we tried; the explainx.ai summary tracks the official description.
- ★★★★★Soo Sethi· Dec 8, 2024
According to our notes, SearXNG Public benefits from clear Model Context Protocol framing — fewer ambiguous “AI plugin” claims.
- ★★★★★Emma Bhatia· Dec 8, 2024
SearXNG Public is a well-scoped MCP server in the explainx.ai directory — install snippets and categories matched our Claude Code setup.
- ★★★★★Omar Thomas· Dec 8, 2024
Strong directory entry: SearXNG Public surfaces stars and publisher context so we could sanity-check maintenance before adopting.
- ★★★★★Nia Lopez· Dec 4, 2024
SearXNG Public has been reliable for tool-calling workflows; the MCP profile page is a good permalink for internal docs.
- ★★★★★Soo Taylor· Nov 27, 2024
SearXNG Public has been reliable for tool-calling workflows; the MCP profile page is a good permalink for internal docs.
- ★★★★★Soo Choi· Nov 27, 2024
I recommend SearXNG Public for teams standardizing on MCP; the explainx.ai page compares cleanly with sibling servers.
- ★★★★★Aditi Thompson· Nov 23, 2024
According to our notes, SearXNG Public benefits from clear Model Context Protocol framing — fewer ambiguous “AI plugin” claims.
- ★★★★★Soo Kim· Nov 19, 2024
Useful MCP listing: SearXNG Public is the kind of server we cite when onboarding engineers to host + tool permissions.
showing 1-10 of 56