The deciding difference is operational: SearXNG can run on infrastructure you control, Tavily cannot. If that constraint is real for you, it settles the choice before anything else is considered.
Search API that returns model-ready answers rather than ten blue links.
Self-hosted metasearch. No third-party search vendor in the path.
| Tavily | SearXNG | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Proprietary | Open source |
| Pricing | freemium | open source |
| Self-hostable | No | Yes |
| Languages | Python, TypeScript | Any language |
| Install | — | — |
| Keys required | TAVILY_API_KEY | None |
The deciding difference is operational: SearXNG can run on infrastructure you control, Tavily cannot. If that constraint is real for you, it settles the choice before anything else is considered. Tavily: Search API that returns model-ready answers rather than ten blue links. SearXNG: Self-hosted metasearch. No third-party search vendor in the path.
Tavily is a hosted service only. SearXNG can run on your own infrastructure.
Tavily is proprietary (freemium). SearXNG is open source (open source).
Every page here answers to Accept: text/markdown and returns the same content at roughly a tenth the tokens. No separate site, no toggle — same URL.
curl -s -H "Accept: text/markdown" https://newagent.build/compare/tavily-vs-searxng