Hister: A private, self-hosted search for your web memory
Hister, developed by asciimoo, is a private self-hosted search engine that helps you build a personal archive of web pages and local documents for future retrieval. The app captures full text of visited pages through a companion Firefox extension and indexes local files so you can search content even when sources change or disappear. It provides an advanced query language, faceted filters, and keyboard-friendly interfaces. The target audience includes privacy-conscious researchers, developers, and users who want local control of their digital memory.
What content does the app index and how is it captured?
The app creates full-text indexes of visited sites and local documents so the saved content is searchable beyond title and URL. The companion browser add-on automatically sends page text to the local index, preserving snapshots for offline preview. Supported file inputs include:
- DOCX
- Markdown and plain text
How does the app handle data locality and network interaction?
The app uses a privacy-centric architecture with no telemetry or external cloud dependencies, so indexed data stays under your control. The browser extension posts captured text to the local instance rather than a third-party service. A multi-user mode lets a household or small team host separate indexes, and indexed pages can be previewed locally even when the original site is unreachable.
What search expressions and AI workflows does it support?
Search is built around an advanced query language with field filters, wildcards, negation, and aliases, plus faceted filtering by domain, language, or file type. The tool offers optional semantic search when you configure an embeddings endpoint, and it implements the Model Context Protocol so AI assistants can reference your indexed documents. Document versioning provides diff-style previews to inspect changes over time.
Who benefits from running this software and what setup does it require?
The app exposes multiple client interfaces, including a web UI, a terminal user interface, and a command-line tool, so it fits keyboard-oriented workflows and scripted access. The companion extension is available for Firefox and Chrome to capture browsing automatically. Optional semantic features require an embeddings endpoint, so some configuration and technical familiarity improve results for researchers and developers managing large archives.
Hister suits people prepared to host and maintain their own index
Distributed as a single Go binary and an official Docker image for Linux, macOS, and Windows, the app favors people comfortable running local services. The developer is known for SearX and Colly, which underscores the project's search and privacy focus. Suitable deployment options mean it can run on a local machine or a home server. Expect to manage the server and configuration rather than use a hands-off cloud product.
