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

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🚀 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.

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✨ 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.

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🛠 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)

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👥 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

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📸 Screenshots / Demo

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

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🔥 Project Status

• 🟢 Actively building

Last updated: 2026-03-01

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❓ 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/.

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📬 Contact & Links

• Website: https://fess.codelibs.org
• GitHub: https://github.com/codelibs/fess
• Twitter/X:
• Email:
• Forum: https://discuss.codelibs.org/c/FessEN/
• Commercial Support: https://www.n2sm.net/en/support/fess_support.html

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