Aleph
Tool for indexing large amounts of both documents (PDF, Word, HTML) and structured (CSV, XLS, SQL) data for easy browsing and search. It is built with investigative reporting as a primary use case.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Slowing: no commits in the last 90 days, last push Feb 2026.
Comparisons in Search Engines: Algolia alternatives, Google Search alternatives.
At a glance
Aleph quick facts
- Health score
- 50/100 SLOWING
- Stars
- 2,485
- Last commit
- 8 months ago (Feb 2026)
- Latest release
- 4.1.7, Oct 2025
- Licence
- MIT
Top alternatives to Aleph
In its own words
The project's README opens: "Truth cannot penetrate a closed mind. If all places in the universe are in the Aleph, then all stars, all lamps, all sources of light are in it, too."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
Aleph scores 50/100, #14 of 16 in Search Engines: 0 commits in the last 90 days earn 0.0 of 35 points, the latest release (4.1.7, 1 years ago) earns 16.3 of 25, 2,485 stars add 13.6 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and Docker support adds the final 10. That places it in the slowing band (40 to 69). The biggest shortfall is commit activity, worth 35.0 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity biggest shortfall 0.0 / 35
0 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 16.3 / 25
4.1.7 released 1 years ago
- Stars 13.6 / 20
2.5k stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support 10.0 / 10
Docker image or Compose file available
Commit activity
- 0
- Last 90 days
- 4
- Last 12 months
- 8 months ago
- Last push
Ranked #14 of 16 tools in Search Engines by health , between Amgix (#13) and bitmagnet (#15) .
Details
| Licence | MIT |
| Platforms | Docker, K8S |
| Latest release | 4.1.7 · 1 years ago |
| Stars | 2,485 |
| Open issues | 266 |
| Docker | Yes |
| Repository | alephdata/aleph ↗ |
Aleph vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a category with Aleph (Search Engines), scored on the same five terms.
| Tool | Health | Stars | Licence | Last commit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AFFiNE Community Edition | 99 | 74k | MIT | 3 days ago |
| Hister | 95 | 6.2k | AGPL-3.0 | yesterday |
| Atomic Server | 93 | 1.6k | MIT | today |
| Apache Solr | 68 | 1.7k | Apache-2.0 | today |
| memEx | 57 | 2 | AGPL-3.0 | 5 days ago |
| Aleph (this tool) | 50 | 2.5k | MIT | 8 months ago |
Aleph: common questions
Is Aleph still maintained?
Aleph had 0 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was 8 months ago; the latest tagged release, 4.1.7, is from 1 years ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.
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