What it does
Marginalia Search is an independent open-source web search engine developed in Sweden. Its stated purpose is discovering smaller sites, and its policy describes functional cookies and short-lived IP access logs.
Marginalia focuses on discovering independent websites and text-heavy parts of the web. Its published policy permits functional cookies and retains IP-bearing access logs for up to 24 hours, with anonymized diagnostics potentially kept longer.
For integrations, its current API accepts result-count, page, per-domain limit and filter parameters. The documentation provides a shared public key for initial requests, but that key has rate limits and cannot create custom filters. A separate key can manage XML filters. The new API is distinguished from an older endpoint that remains available without new functionality.
Strengths
- The project provides an independent approach to web discovery.
- Its policy states concrete access-log retention limits.
- The source is available under AGPL.
Watch out for
- IP-bearing access logs may be retained for up to 24 hours.
Best for
- People exploring smaller websites beyond the usual large-engine results
Sources
- About Marginalia Search - Marginalia Search (Oct 26, 2026)
- Marginalia Search API documentation (Oct 26, 2026)