Fess - Enterprise Search Server | WarmIndex

Fess is a powerful, open-source enterprise full-text search server that crawls and indexes diverse data sources for easy, customizable search capabilities.

🚀 Overview

Fess is a user-friendly, Java-based full-text search server designed as a free alternative to commercial solutions like Google Site Search. It simplifies setting up enterprise search by providing a built-in crawler for web pages, file systems, databases, cloud services, and more, along with a browser-based admin GUI for configuration.

This project solves the problem of needing flexible, secure full-text search without vendor lock-in or high costs. It handles authentication, facets, labeling, and integrations seamlessly.

It's built for developers, IT teams, and organizations requiring site search, document search, or enterprise-wide search solutions.

Fess was developed by the CodeLibs team to deliver a powerful, easily deployable search engine under an open-source license, empowering users with full control and extensibility.

✨ Key Features

Advanced Crawler: Indexes web servers, file systems, databases, Confluence/Jira, cloud services (S3, Office 365, etc.), supports MS Office, PDF, OCR, custom headers, and more.
Secure Search: Supports BASIC/DIGEST/NTLM/FORM auth, SSO (Active Directory, SAML), role-based results.
Search UI & Admin: Responsive design, facets, drill-down, autocomplete, suggestions; browser-based config for crawling, logs, dictionaries.
Extensions & Integrations: Plugins, JSON APIs, JS widgets for sites, location search, thumbnails; extensible via Groovy/OGNL scripts.
Optional: Docker deployment, ingest pipelines, internationalization.

🛠 Tech Stack

Frontend: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (responsive web UI)
Backend: Java, LastaFlute (web framework), Lasta Di (DI), Lasta Job (scheduler), Fess Crawler
Database: OpenSearch (or Elasticsearch)
Auth: BASIC/DIGEST/NTLM/FORM, SAML, Active Directory
Hosting: Self-hosted (zip/bin, deb/rpm), Docker (ghcr.io/codelibs/fess)

👥 Who Is This For?

This project is useful for:

Developers who want to integrate powerful search into websites or apps
Teams looking for enterprise search across documents, code, and data sources
Indie makers building site search or personal knowledge bases

📸 Screenshots / Demo

Live demo: Demo sites for Document Search, Code Search, Site Search at https://fess.codelibs.org
GitHub: https://github.com/codelibs/fess

🔥 Project Status

🟢 Actively building

Last updated: 2026-03-01

❓ FAQ

Is this project free?

Yes — Open Source under Apache License 2.0 (free for personal and commercial use).

Is the source code available?

Yes — https://github.com/codelibs/fess

Can I contribute?

Yes, fork the repo, create a feature branch, and submit pull requests on GitHub. Translations and plugins welcome. Join discussions at https://discuss.codelibs.org/c/FessEN/.