codelibs/fess

Open-source, self-hosted enterprise & site search server built on OpenSearch. Crawls web / file / DB / cloud sources, 20+ languages, REST API, and AI/RAG & semantic search. Apache-2.0.

What it solves

Fess is an enterprise search server that allows organizations to centralize search across diverse data sources. It eliminates the need for users to manually search through different platforms by providing a single, unified search interface for internal documents and web content.

How it works

Built on OpenSearch, Fess uses built-in crawlers to collect documents from websites, file systems, and various data stores (such as databases, CSVs, and cloud storage). It processes these documents into a searchable index. Users can then perform full-text searches with features like faceting and suggestions, while administrators manage the system via a browser-based UI or REST API.

Who it’s for

It is designed for enterprises and organizations that need a powerful, self-hosted search solution to index and search across multiple internal data silos, including SaaS platforms like Slack, SharePoint, and Confluence.

Highlights

  • Multi-source crawling: Supports web sites, file systems, and a wide array of data stores including S3, Salesforce, and Office 365.
  • Broad format support: Indexes Microsoft Office documents, PDFs, and ZIP archives.
  • Enterprise security: Includes role- and permission-based filtering of search results and SSO integration with LDAP, SAML, and Microsoft Entra ID.
  • Extensible architecture: Can be extended via data store, ingest, script, and theme plugins.

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