Hister v0.21.0

Hister is a free and open-source personal search engine that indexes the contents of web pages and local files so they can be searched later. It runs on infrastructure you control, provides a web interface and terminal search, and can also connect to AI assistants through MCP.

Features

Hister performs full-text indexing rather than searching only page titles and URLs. It can index pages visited through its Firefox and Chrome browser extensions and can also index local directories and imported browser history.

Its search system supports phrases, wildcards, field filters, negation, aliases, and result priorities. This provides more control than a basic keyword search when working with a large personal archive.

Hister also supports optional semantic search through a configurable embeddings endpoint. This allows searches based on meaning rather than exact words, although using a remote embeddings service means document text may be sent to that service.

The software can crawl websites recursively and import existing content. Recent releases have also added unified imports for browser history, local files, bookmarks, and archived content from services such as Linkwarden, Karakeep, and Shaarli.

Hister can be accessed through its web interface, terminal interface, TUI, command line, or an AI assistant using MCP. Multi-user support allows separate documents and search results to be maintained on a shared server.

Download Hister v0.21.0 - Software Mirrors
Hister v0.21.0 for Windows hister_0.21.0_windows_amd64.exe | 107.44 MB
Hister v0.21.0 for macOS hister_0.21.0_darwin_arm64 | 104.75 MB hister_0.21.0_darwin_amd64 | 106.77 MB
Hister v0.21.0 for Linux hister_0.21.0_linux_arm64 | 104.31 MB hister_0.21.0_linux_amd64 | 107.36 MB
Others Download related to Hister v0.21.0 hister_0.21.0_checksums.txt | 468 B
Hister v0.21.0 Source Code Hister v0.21.0 Source code (zip) Hister v0.21.0 Source code (tar.gz)
Hister v0.21.0 Release Notes: New Features Configuration Reload hister reload applies configuration, rules, and logging changes without a manual server restart. It waits for completion and rejects invalid settings. Expect a brief interruption and refresh open web pages afterward. Client configuration changes still require restarting the affected clients. More Expressive Search Combine nested groups, phrases, and field filters with AND, OR, and NOT. For example, (site:github.com OR site:gitlab.com) NOT title:archived searches both sites while excluding archived titles. The new site: filter includes subdomains, and has: finds documents with a populated field or metadata value, such as has:label or has:metadata.author. Invalid queries now explain what needs fixing and where. URL regular expression searches are faster when a pattern has a specific starting prefix. Kiwix, Sitemap, and Readwise Reader Imports hister import zim collection.zim makes HTML and plain text from Kiwix archives searchable without downloading each original page. It recovers original URLs and article links, with --base-url as a fallback when archive paths match the source website. Entries without an identifiable original URL are skipped with a warning. Embedded images and other assets are not imported, and large archives can require substantial memory. hister import sitemap FILE_OR_URL indexes pages listed in XML sitemaps, including sitemap indexes, gzip compressed files, and standard input. Duplicate URLs are queued once, and the page crawl can be interrupted and resumed using its job ID. Existing documents are skipped unless --force is supplied. hister import readwise imports Readwise Reader documents with saved content, notes, summaries, tags, and source metadata. It uses Reader's stored HTML when available and otherwise tries the original page. Separate highlight and note records are skipped, and original PDF and EPUB attachments are not downloaded. Language Controls and Persistent Corrections Limit automatic language detection with indexer.languages, or choose between the default low memory mode and high accuracy mode with indexer.language_detection_accuracy. Short web pages can use their titles to help identify the language, and matching page declarations can supply regional labels. hister update QUERY --language en now pins the language across reindexing, imports, and document updates. Use --language auto to clear a pin or --language unknown to keep a document without an identified language. language:en includes regional variants such as en-US, while a regional filter narrows the results. Existing documents remain searchable when automatic detection is disabled. Expanded MCP Tools for AI Assistants Assistants can page through search results, use the new get_facets tool to explore document counts, and filter history by text and date. Search limits now apply to the combined history, keyword, and semantic results. Preview requests can select text, HTML, or metadata and read long documents in smaller portions, reducing how much content an assistant needs to retrieve at once. Remote User Management and Proxy Authentication The new hister user create, show, update, and delete commands manage accounts on the configured running server using an administrator's token. Account changes are applied together, conflicting updates are rejected, and the last administrator cannot be deleted or demoted. Use hister user create USERNAME --offline --admin with the server stopped to create the first administrator or recover access. server.proxy_auth_header enables sign in through a trusted authentication proxy. The proxy must verify users, replace client supplied identity headers, and prevent direct access to Hister. New proxy users receive ordinary accounts without passwords. OIDC providers can also select a stable account identity with identity_claim, including providers that do not supply email addresses. Enhancements Search interface: simpler result controls, clearer domains and titles, compact expandable snippets, and mobile friendly actions make results easier to scan. Set app.snippet_length to control the returned context and use Always expand snippets to remember a browser preference. Suggestions are hidden by default and can be enabled through Actions → Show suggestions. Semantic search responsiveness: query embedding requests have separate capacity from indexing and a configurable timeout. Searches return keyword results when query embedding times out, with a default limit of two seconds. PDF extraction: the built in reader handles more LaTeX generated PDFs. Configure indexer.pdf_parser to use an external parser such as pdftotext for browser uploads, watched files, and file imports. Browser capture: the extension uses canonical URLs on the same hostname to reduce duplicate pages. Automatic capture skips HTTP error pages, and PDFs are recognized by their response type even without a .pdf suffix. Previews and login: GitHub issue previews include discussion content, failed previews offer a fallback, and signing in returns to the original page with its query or preview link. Feedback: maintenance commands show progress, command line searches explain empty results and can include document text, and the Add page explains submission failures. Monitoring: server.expose_version enables public version reporting for monitoring clients and is disabled by default. Prometheus latency metrics use native histograms. Dependencies: Go modules, npm packages, container bases, Nix inputs, and GitHub Actions were updated. Bug Fixes Anonymous searches in public mode return only global documents. Submitted documents cannot reference another document's stored HTML or favicon, and client redirects no longer leak access tokens to other destinations. Password changes invalidate the affected user's existing browser sessions. GitHub login uses permanent account IDs so renamed or recycled usernames cannot change which identity an account belongs to. Persistent crawls mark URLs complete only after successful document submission. Failed submissions are recorded as failures, and interrupted submissions remain resumable. Cleanup preserves HTML and favicons while documents are still being indexed. Reindexing keeps files whose extracted text is empty, and exports preserve existing backups when writing fails. Queries containing only negated terms return matching documents. Relevance optimization no longer broadens the requested results, and semantic results honor date filters and requested content fields. Server access to local files is restricted to configured directories, including checks on symbolic link targets. Org files cannot read other files through include directives. Request, download, and extraction limits bound resource use. PDF capture preserves pending downloads and uses the committed page title. The Firefox crawler rejects reported HTTP error responses, and qutebrowser handles larger browser events. PostgreSQL timestamps are handled correctly, priority rule errors are reported, and repeated index write failures no longer cause excessive CPU use. Backward Compatibility Notes The following changes require attention when upgrading from v0.20.0: GitHub and OIDC accounts: existing GitHub account links are not automatically migrated to permanent account IDs. Back up the database and arrange verified account relinking before users sign in again; otherwise, login creates a separate account while documents remain with the old one. Changing OIDC's identity_claim also requires relinking existing accounts. Leaving it unset preserves the existing email based identity. User management scripts: the old create-user, show-user, update-user, and delete-user names remain deprecated aliases, but account operations now target the running server and require an administrator's personal token. Use user create --offline for local account creation with the server stopped. Replace the old token display flag with --show-token; --token now supplies authentication credentials. Search syntax: uppercase AND, OR, and NOT are operators. Quote them to search for the words themselves. Negation takes precedence over AND, then OR; use parentheses to make grouping explicit. Malformed queries are rejected by search, update, and delete operations. Local files: run hister reindex to remove previously indexed files reached through symbolic links outside configured directories. Org files using #+INCLUDE or #+SETUPFILE must contain the needed text directly. Opening a watched local file downloads it; use its preview to read it in Hister. Size limits: document, PDF, and batch uploads default to 40 MiB, controlled by server.max_batch_body_size. HTTP HTML downloads and extracted text have a 32 MiB ceiling. Favicon and robots files have an 8 MiB limit; an oversized robots file causes the site's URLs to be skipped. Raising the upload limit does not raise extraction limits. MCP clients: requests carrying an unrelated Origin are rejected. Set server.base_url to the public URL when using a reverse proxy. Clients paging opened history should pass both last_id and last_updated_at from the previous response. Language settings: reindex to apply detection changes to existing documents. Reapply language corrections made before persistent pins were available if they should survive future updates.

Performance and Compatibility

Hister is written in Go and can run locally or on infrastructure controlled by the user. It supports SQLite and PostgreSQL as database backends, with PostgreSQL support added in version 0.12.0.

The application is designed for continuous personal indexing. Once the server is running, the browser extension can automatically send visited page content to the configured Hister server for indexing.

Hister does not require a cloud service or account for a local personal setup. The project states that it has no telemetry or mandatory cloud synchronization. Indexed documents and search indexes remain on the Hister server.

The current release series also includes features for public search deployments, documentation datasets, and additional import sources. Version 0.17.0 introduced a unified import interface and support for importing content from Linkwarden, Karakeep, and Shaarli.

System Requirements

Hister provides prebuilt binaries for supported platforms, including Windows, Linux, and macOS. The Windows version can be started directly from PowerShell using the hister.exe binary.

For normal use:

• Windows, Linux, or macOS

• Firefox or Chrome if browser history indexing is required

• Storage for indexed documents and search indexes

• A local or server environment where Hister can remain running

For building from source:

• Go 1.26

• npm

• C compiler for CGO dependencies

Hardware requirements are not specified as a fixed minimum because resource usage depends on the amount of content being indexed and the selected database and search configuration.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Free and open source

• Full-text personal search

• Indexes web pages and local files

• Firefox and Chrome integration

• Browser history import

• Website crawler

• Powerful search operators

• Optional semantic search

• Web interface

• Terminal and TUI access

• MCP support for AI assistants

• Multi-user support

• No telemetry by default

• No mandatory cloud service

• Supports SQLite and PostgreSQL

• Docker and Nix installation options

• AGPLv3 licensed

Cons

• Requires running and maintaining your own server

• Initial indexing can consume significant storage and processing resources

• Semantic search requires an embeddings endpoint

• Browser integration requires an extension

• More complex to configure than conventional desktop search tools

• The AGPLv3 license may require consideration for organizations modifying and redistributing the software

How to Install

Download the Hister binary for your operating system from the project's releases. On Windows, rename the executable to hister.exe if necessary and start it from PowerShell with:

.\hister.exe listen

On Linux or macOS, make the binary executable and start it with:

chmod +x hister
./hister listen

Then open the local Hister web interface at http://127.0.0.1:4433 and install the Firefox or Chrome browser extension. After visiting pages with the extension enabled, their content can be indexed and searched through Hister.

Hister can also be installed using Homebrew, Docker, or Nix. Existing browser history, local directories, and files can be imported after installation.

Final Verdict

Hister is a useful personal search engine for users who want to build their own searchable archive of web pages and files. Its full-text indexing, browser integration, local deployment, advanced queries, semantic search option, and MCP support make it more than a simple browser history search tool.

The main tradeoff is that Hister is self-hosted software. Users need to keep the server running and manage the storage and indexing environment themselves. For users who want a private search index under their own control, that approach provides considerably more control over their data.

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Software Informations:
Developer:
Adam Tauber
Operating System:
Windows / macOS / Linux
Date Added:
2026-10-27T10:22:11.412Z
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