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YaCy vs Brave Search: catalog facts
YaCy	Brave Search
Free Free and open source software.	Free Free to use in the browser.
Web, Self-hosted	Web, Browser extension
Decentralized peer-to-peer web index with no central operator Can run as a private crawler or intranet search portal	Own independent index instead of proxying another engine No profiling of users
Pre-compiled packages are not built regularly; compiling from source is recommended Peer-to-peer results are less complete than major web search engines	An independent index can have gaps compared with the largest engines AI answers can be inaccurate and should be checked
Downloadable app, Self-hosted	Web application, Browser extension
Open source	Closed source
License: GPL-2.0	License not stated
No account needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Needs internet
Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026

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