Hister

Your own personal search engine over pages you visit.

About Hister

Hister is a free, self-hosted personal search engine that automatically indexes the web pages you visit and files on your own machine. It offers offline previews of results, multi-user support and optional semantic search, accessible through web, command-line, API and MCP interfaces. Released as free software under the AGPL, it suits people who want to re-find what they have seen without depending on commercial engines.

Hister website preview

Live preview of hister.org via the WordPress mShots service — it can take a few seconds to generate on a first visit.

Hister: strengths & things to check

Strengths

Completely free to use — this directory lists no paid plan for it.
Covers search, personal, indexing, privacy — see the focus areas listed in its key facts.
Has 6 close alternatives in the same category on this page, so switching or comparing is easy.

Things to check

Free tools can change their model or shut down — avoid locking critical work into it without an export path.
Current plan prices are not listed here (they change too often to print reliably) — confirm the exact price on the official site.
It is one of 1009 tools in the Data & Analytics category here — compare it against the alternatives below before you commit.

Derived from this listing's own data (pricing model, focus areas and category) — not a hands-on review score.

Hister pricing

Pricing model	Free — listed in this directory as a free tool, with no paid plan required to use it.
Free access	Yes — fully free
Current plan prices	Listed on the official site — prices change, so this directory links out instead of printing a number that may already be stale.
Official site	hister.org

Hister key facts

Category: Data & Analytics
Pricing: Free — listed in this directory as a free tool, with no paid plan required to use it.
Focus areas: search, personal, indexing, privacy
Official site: hister.org

Hister FAQ

How much does Hister cost?

Free — listed in this directory as a free tool, with no paid plan required to use it. Current plans and prices are listed on the official site (hister.org).

What is Hister used for?

Your own personal search engine over pages you visit. Its focus areas in the Data & Analytics category: search, personal, indexing, privacy.

Where can I try Hister?

On its official site, hister.org — the Visit Official Site button above goes straight there.

Hister vs alternatives

	Hister	Ackee	Aleph Pro	Algolia
Pricing	Free — listed in this directory as a free tool, with no paid plan required to use it.	Free — listed in this directory as a free tool, with no paid plan required to use it.	Freemium — a free tier lets you start, and paid plans are available if you need more.	Freemium — a free tier lets you start, and paid plans are available if you need more.
Focus areas	search, personal, indexing, privacy	analytics, privacy, self hosted	investigative, search, documents, journalism	search, discovery, api
Official site	hister.org	ackee.electerious.com	aleph.occrp.org	algolia.com
Directory status	Listed	Listed	Listed	Listed

Side-by-side from each listing's own directory data. Full alternative cards are below.

About the Data & Analytics category

Analytics and BI platforms that turn raw data into clear insights. The Data & Analytics category on Tools Hub currently lists 1009 tools. Alongside Hister, it includes YaCy, WakaTime, Hexomatic, Dawiso.

FreeData & Analyticssearchpersonalindexingprivacy

Alternatives to Hister

Tools in the same Data & Analytics category that share focus areas with Hister — worth comparing before you commit:

Data & Analytics

Ackee

Self-hosted analytics tool that keeps tracked data anonymous and on your

Freeanalyticsprivacyself-hosted

Data & Analytics

Aleph Pro

The global archive of research material for investigative reporting

Freemiuminvestigativesearchdocumentsjournalism

Data & Analytics

Algolia

AI search and discovery platform for businesses

Freemiumsearchdiscoveryapi

Data & Analytics

Amundsen

Data discovery and metadata engine from Lyft

Freedata-discoverymetadatacatalogsearch

Data & Analytics

Apache Solr

Enterprise search platform built on Lucene

Freesearchenterpriseopen-source

Data & Analytics

AskCSV

Ask questions about CSV files in plain English, in-browser

Freemiumcsvchat-with-dataprivacycharts

More in Data & Analytics

Comparing tools in the Data & Analytics category? These related listings are worth a look: YaCy — Free, distributed peer-to-peer search engine software; WakaTime — AI coding analytics for developers; Hexomatic — Web scraping and workflow automation made easy, no code required.