Hister
Self-hosted tool that indexes the web pages you visit for later full-text search.
Liked for keeping a searchable index of pages you've already visited123, so things you've read stop getting lost and bookmarks feel unnecessary.45 The most common complaints are heavy CPU and server load67 and no mobile support yet.89
Why people recommend it
Recovering lost pages · 3
Users rely on it to find pages they saw before and would otherwise have lost.
“Hister does save all of my history for desktop”
“I have been using your app for two months now. I have only had to rely on it a few times, but each time I did it worked beautifully.”
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“I would suggest for those to explore Hister [1] and Karakeep [2]. It is much useful that I don't worry about losing stuff now.”
Concept appeal · 3
Many commenters say it is a tool they had long wanted.
“Hister sounds like something I wanted for a while, but never got around to building.”
“that looks like a bit of software I have been dreaming about for awhile - will definately check out!”
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“I love your idea and wondered why saving and indexing browser visited pages was not being done.”
Replaces bookmarking · 2
Knowing everything is findable removes the urge to bookmark or hoard tabs.
“I have been using it since May and find it immensely useful.”
“I would suggest for those to explore Hister [1] and Karakeep [2]. It is much useful that I don't worry about losing stuff now.”
Search experience · 3
Commenters like the search UI, and one uses it as their default search engine.
“I use Hister as my default search engine. I’m quite happy with it.”
“I like the search ui.”
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“This one looks a lot nicer.”
Browser plugin · 2
The browser plugin caches page contents and lets you choose which pages to index.
“The upside is that it caches website contents via browser plugin, which is a nice workaround for bot blocking.”
“It is useful for sure, but I think it will really shine once I've been using it long enough”
Caveats and dissent
Resource usage · 2
Users report high CPU and battery drain, and one says it hogged their server and broke their reverse proxy.
“I used to use it, but it would use a lot of CPU and hurt battery life”
“I love Hister so much.”
No mobile support · 2
It is not available on iOS yet, and users want mobile apps and better Safari support.
“Hister does save all of my history for desktop”
“I would seriously consider giving Hister a try because it seems like a better fit.”
Manual seeding · 1
The local index often has to be seeded by hand.
“The upside is that it caches website contents via browser plugin, which is a nice workaround for bot blocking.”
Slow payoff · 1
One user expects it to be most useful only after a large index has built up over time.
“It is useful for sure, but I think it will really shine once I've been using it long enough”
Often compared with
Who recommends it in their own words
From the makers not counted in the ranking
“Hister builds a personal search index from pages you visit, bookmarks, browser history, local files, and crawled websites.”
“I'm working on a similar application called Hister”
“I started Hister as a proxy as well, but quickly switched to the current extension based approach”
“its biggest strength is automatically indexing browser tabs as those are rendered”
“My new search project is https://github.com/asciimoo/hister (https://hister.org/).”
“I've been using it for a few months and as my local index is growing I can avoid opening google/duckduckgo/kagi”
Threads where it came up
- Hister: A private search engine for the pages you visit and the files you keep 8 mentions
- SearXNG: A free internet metasearch engine 6 mentions
- Hister – private, self hosted search engine 5 mentions
- Overgrown, when plants invade your abandoned tabs 2 mentions
- Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7? 1 mention
- Web Search API 1 mention
Also written as hister. Data: hister.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 23
“Hister does save all of my history for desktop”
“I would suggest for those to explore Hister [1] and Karakeep [2]. It is much useful that I don't worry about losing stuff now.”
“languagetool, nextcloud, hister, syncthing, restic backups, vaultwarden, windmill”
“The upside is that it caches website contents via browser plugin, which is a nice workaround for bot blocking.”
“I think Hister seems promising, but have not tried it myself yet.”
“I used to use it, but it would use a lot of CPU and hurt battery life”
“I use Hister as my default search engine. I’m quite happy with it.”
“I love Hister so much.”
“now I am going to try this since I have so much of it already setup.”
“I have been using your app for two months now. I have only had to rely on it a few times, but each time I did it worked beautifully.”
“I like the search ui.”
“It is useful for sure, but I think it will really shine once I've been using it long enough”
“This one looks a lot nicer.”
“You could pass it all to hister (searchable) and then just export to any format”
“I would seriously consider giving Hister a try because it seems like a better fit.”
“I have been using it since May and find it immensely useful.”
“This is so cool!”
“if it works as described this is a great product”
“There are projects like Hister that will help make your own search index”
“Hister sounds like something I wanted for a while, but never got around to building.”
“that looks like a bit of software I have been dreaming about for awhile - will definately check out!”
“I love your idea and wondered why saving and indexing browser visited pages was not being done.”
“If I wanted to use use my domain list to start hister”