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Fess vs Manticore Search: catalog facts
Fess	Manticore Search
Free Free and open source under Apache-2.0; commercial support is available.	Free Free and open source under the GPL-3.0 licence.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Web, Self-hosted	Linux, Self-hosted
Crawler, indexer, admin console and search UI included Indexes Office, PDF and archive files from many sources	Full-text, vector and hybrid search in one engine SQL query interface
Non-Docker installs need a separate OpenSearch setup Requires Java 21 and server resources	A server component for developers, not an end-user search app Benchmark results depend on the workload
Downloadable app, Self-hosted	Downloadable app, Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: GPL-3.0
Not stated if an account is needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.