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