Marginalia Search
Hacker ApprovedRanked 9 of 38 search engines by recommenders
Recommended for finding real personal blogs and non-commercial sites that mainstream engines bury, often as a second search. Caveat: its index is small and misses many queries.
Recommended for finding real personal blogs and non-commercial sites that mainstream engines bury, often as a second search. Caveat: its index is small and misses many queries.
54 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 50
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 93%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 50 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 13 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Good alternative when Google falls short
“results from search engines like marginalia etc that I tend to forget to search directly but like having meshed into my general searches.”
Comment from 25 May 2026 in “Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore” “I usually use Marginalia Search when I'm researching something and not finding any good results on Kagi or Google.”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Back to Kagi” “Marginalia likely returns better results than Google, when it returns useful results.”
Comment from 12 Sep 2026 in “google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update” - Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “Mozilla: The state of open source AI”
- Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Building a Simple Search Engine That Works”
Finds obscure small-web sites
“has some not-very-obvious tools for exploring the link graph, that will occasionally turn up interesting things”
Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?” “You can kinda get a similar experience to StumbleUpon with marginalia's explore mode”
Comment from 6 Dec 2025 in “Making RSS More Fun” “I love your search engine for my ttrpg side projects to find obscure blogs, etc.”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (March 2026)” - Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: What are the viable alternatives to DuckDuckGo?”
- Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: I built a frontpage for personal blogs”
Surfaces real personal blogs
“almost always I find a real person writing about their experiences, not some content farm or corporate bland talk”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Publish Your Work” “is an indie search engine that prioritizes small websites and non-commercial content”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: Is there a search engine that blocks SEO / AI content?” “it does achieve its stated goal: of resurfacing real people on the internet.”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “Internet Increasingly Becoming Unarchivable” Filters out ads and scripts
“It flags sites that have advertising, javascript, etc. meaning that you can easily avoid those.”
Comment from 10 May 2026 in “Forking the Web” “Whitelisting non–slop is sufficient and gets you Marginalia Search.”
Comment from 15 Feb 2026 in “You Can't Trust the Internet Anymore” “Whatever it does find is pretty much guaranteed to be non-slop.”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Kevin Boone: The "small web" is bigger than you might think”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Index is small and incomplete
“It's refreshing, although it doesn't index enough stuff to find what you're looking for, most times.”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “How AI is affecting productivity and jobs in Europe” “Try Marginalia Search but be warned it doesn't index the entire web”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “A new spam policy for "back button hijacking"” “a much larger index created by one person with less funding”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Back to Kagi” Newer interface needs JavaScript
“And the 'old' interface, you bet I tried to use it... which is actually gated with javascript”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Kevin Boone: The "small web" is bigger than you might think” “Sadely this search engine is now javascript only.”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Kevin Boone: The "small web" is bigger than you might think”
Other search engines people recommend
The four most recommended other search engines, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kagi | 732 | 234 | 76% | 13 | 2 yrs106 owners | Approved |
| Google Search | 315 | 1,039 | 23% | 12 | 20 yrs25 owners | — |
| DuckDuckGo | 286 | 204 | 58% | 12 | 3.5 yrs47 owners | — |
| Hister | 81 | 9 | 90% | 9 | 2 mo17 owners | Approved |
| Marginalia SearchThis page | 50 | 4 | 93% | 12 | — | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 80 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“man does vertico, consult, orderless and marginalia help with discovery”
“Marginalia likely returns better results than Google, when it returns useful results.”
“Brave, Mojeek & Marginalia and EU Search Perspective have certainly been much friendlier to deal with.”
“most results are dead blogs and old .edu personal websites that someone forgot to delete”
“Bonus points to Marginalia for finding the obscure things Brave doesn't surface”
“a much larger index created by one person with less funding”
“I usually use Marginalia Search when I'm researching something and not finding any good results on Kagi or Google.”
“Marginalia already gives me better results for many queries than Google”
“packages like consult, vertico, marginalia etc all built on Emacs' facilities improving not just the package itself but how it integrates”
“I saw the impressive things Marginalia Search is doing in this area”
“results from search engines like marginalia etc that I tend to forget to search directly but like having meshed into my general searches.”
“by the sake of merely not being crap it's actually pretty decent if the thing you're looking for is in its index set”
“It flags sites that have advertising, javascript, etc. meaning that you can easily avoid those.”
“Marginalia Search / Kagi Small Web / Wiby / Million Short are better options”
“demonstrates powerful completion workflows that use daily in Emacs”
“Marginalia [5], if your searches are less about "big tech SEO servants"”
“Try Marginalia Search but be warned it doesn't index the entire web”
“I typically use marginalia and wiby to make finding posts from blogs easier”
“And the 'old' interface, you bet I tried to use it... which is actually gated with javascript”
“Marginalia have an excellent API that you can connect to from your own personal non-Javascript meta-search engine”
“It's a very nice site now. I prefer it better than old version.”
“Sadely this search engine is now javascript only.”
“Whatever it does find is pretty much guaranteed to be non-slop.”
“I am always fascinated by what it unearths when using it, and it really is a breath of fresh air.”
“I love your search engine for my ttrpg side projects to find obscure blogs, etc.”
“It's refreshing, although it doesn't index enough stuff to find what you're looking for, most times.”
“Whitelisting non–slop is sufficient and gets you Marginalia Search.”
“it does achieve its stated goal: of resurfacing real people on the internet.”
“I am pretty happy with https://marginalia-search.com/ . It's kind of my secondary search engine at this point.”
“Read the Marginalia blog too, there's so much good information in there.”
“almost always I find a real person writing about their experiences, not some content farm or corporate bland talk”
“Add your site to Marginalia Search. They accept submissions by email or GitHub PR”
“Sometimes I find it useful to find answers to technical problems because it only searches the kind of site where people write about the technical problems they solved.”
“I especially appreciate Marginalia for publicly documenting as much about building a search engine as they have”
“is an indie search engine that prioritizes small websites and non-commercial content”
“marginalia returns them as top results when I search the relevant keywords”
“You can kinda get a similar experience to StumbleUpon with marginalia's explore mode”
“has some not-very-obvious tools for exploring the link graph, that will occasionally turn up interesting things”
“I wonder what an AI using Marginalia for reference would be like.”
“marginalia search is great as a contrast to engines like google”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.