AstroGrep vs Recoll
AstroGrep
astrogrep.comRecoll
recoll.orgSide by side
| Figure | AstroGrep | Recoll |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 4 |
| Spec score · Desktop Search Software | 7.9 (#13) | 8.4 (#4) |
| Support | The maker directs users to report bugs or request features through GitHub Issues or contact the developers by email. | Users can report problems through the issue tracker, mailing list, or direct email. |
| What it does | AstroGrep is a Windows utility for searching words, strings, and regular expressions inside files, directories, and projects. | Recoll is a desktop full-text search program that searches document contents and filenames. |
Plans
Recoll
- LinuxFree
- Recoll (Linux and source)Free
- Recoll for WindowsPriced on request
- Windows binaryPriced on request
In their own words
Recoll
Recoll is free desktop search software that finds documents by their contents and file names. It indexes many common document formats and compressed files, including email attachments nested inside archives. Search supports Boolean queries, phrases, proximity, wildcards, and filters for file type or directory tree. Indexing can run periodically as a batch job or continuously for real-time updates. Users can search through a Qt desktop interface, a web browser, the command line, GNOME Shell, KDE KIO, or KRunner; the browser interface queries a Recoll index. A Python 3 extension can query or update that index. Recoll can index PDF attachments and annotations, extract custom XMP metadata, and apply OCR to image-only PDFs using Tesseract or ABBYY FineReader. It supports multiple languages and UTF-8, and users can choose a stemming language at query time. Linux and source are free under the GPL. A contribution is requested for the Windows binary, but no amount is stated. Some formats on Linux and macOS need external applications or libraries, and the Windows port lacks some features, including multithreaded execution.