GNU GLOBAL vs Hound
GNU GLOBAL
gnu.orgHound
github.comSide by side
| Figure | GNU GLOBAL | Hound |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Code Search Tools | 8.1 (#7) | 7.7 (#16) |
| License | GNU GLOBAL is free software that may be copied, modified, and redistributed under the GNU GPL. | The repository provides Hound under the MIT License. |
| Purpose | GNU GLOBAL is a source code tagging system for locating objects such as functions, macros, structs, and classes in source files. | Hound is an extremely fast source code search engine with a React frontend and Go backend that maintains an index for each repository. |
| Support | The project directs users seeking help to the [email protected] mailing list. | The README describes platform support and setup guidance but does not specify a support service. |
Plans
In their own words
Hound
Hound is a free source code search engine that indexes repositories and offers a web interface and a minimal API. Its Go backend maintains a current index for each repository, while its static React frontend provides the web UI. Search uses regular-expression matching with a trigram index. Hound supports Git, Mercurial, SVN, Bazaar, and local repositories; private repositories can be indexed from local directories or reached through file or SSH-style URLs. By default, it checks configured repository URLs for updates every 30 seconds, with an interval that can be changed per repository. It can be built from source or run from the project's Docker image, and the web UI defaults to localhost:6080. Plugins are available for Sublime Text, Vim, Emacs, and Visual Studio Code. Hound is tested on macOS and CentOS and is expected to work on Unix-like systems, but Windows is not supported. It does not support TLS itself; the README suggests running it behind Apache or nginx. Hound uses the MIT license, and the latest listed release is v0.7.1, published May 3, 2023.