2026-06-25
Easy-to-build Full-Text Search Environment
Enterprise Search Server
Enterprise Search Server
Fess
Point Fess at your web sites, files, and databases — get secure, full-text search running in minutes, with nothing to build and nothing to buy.
Why Fess
Free & Self-Hosted
Apache-licensed and open source. Run it on your own infrastructure, keep full control of your data, and pay nothing in license fees.
Batteries Included
Crawler, indexer, admin console, and search UI — all built in. Skip months of integration work building a search app from scratch.
Enterprise-Ready Security
BASIC/DIGEST/NTLM/FORM authentication, Single Sign-On (SAML, Active Directory), and permission-aware results out of the box.
How It Works
1
Point Fess at your sources
Configure web sites, file shares, databases, or cloud storage from the admin console — no scripting required.
2
Fess crawls & indexes
Built-in crawlers extract text from HTML, PDF, Office documents, and more, then index it in OpenSearch.
3
Your team searches
A ready-made search UI goes live immediately — with facets, suggestions, and highlighting built in.
Fess is a "user-friendly full-text search server" that can be easily set up.
Fess can be executed on any operating system with a Java or Docker runtime environment. Fess is provided under the Apache License and is available for free (as freeware) to use.
Demo Site
Document Search
Code Search
Site Search
Features
Try Fess!
Documentation
Environment
- Provided under the Apache License (freeware)
- Available for use in a Java or Docker (platform-independent)
- Built on OpenSearch, a mature, scalable open source search engine
- Designed to be flexible and adaptable according to various use cases
Crawler
- Crawl web pages, file systems, Windows shared folders, and databases
- Supports various file formats such as MS Office (Word/Excel/PowerPoint) and PDF
- Custom request headers, domain handling, and path conversion
- Support for external text extraction such as OCR
Secure Search
- Search websites with BASIC/DIGEST/NTLM/FORM authentication
- Differentiate search results based on the login status
- Single Sign-On (SSO) using Active Directory, SAML, and other methods
Search
- Classify search results through labeling
- Support for facets and drill-down
- Responsive web design for smartphone compatibility
- Provide JavaScript for integration into existing websites
Extensions
- Auto-complete and suggestion
- Location-based search integrated with map information
- Cached display and thumbnail view of search results
- Proxy functionality for search results
Administration
- Configure crawling targets and edit search screens within the browser
- Aggregate search logs and click logs
- Edit user dictionaries and synonym dictionaries
External integration
- Integration via JSON-formatted search result
- External system integration can be achieved using access tokens
- Functionality can be extended through plugins
News
2026-05-02
Fess 15.6.1 is released.
2026-04-18
Fess 15.6.0 is released.
2026-02-14
Fess 15.5.0 is released.
2025-12-25
Fess 15.4.0 is released.
Commercial Support
Fess is an open-source product provided under the Apache License, available for free for both personal and commercial use
If you require support services such as customization, implementation, and setup of Fess, please consider our commercial support (paid service). Additionally, commercial support is available for performance tuning, including enhancing search quality and crawl speed.
Let's get started with Fess
By following a simple set of instructions, you can set up your search environment, so please give it a try.
Getting Started