OpenGrok vs Sourcebot
OpenGrok
oracle.github.io
Sourcebot
sourcebot.devSide by side
| Figure | OpenGrok | Sourcebot |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $20/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 3 |
| Spec score · Code Search Tools | 7.8 (#11) | 8.0 (#8) |
| Deployment | Setup requires creating an index and deploying the web application; the guide is primarily for Unix-like systems and says Windows setup is similar with adjusted commands and paths. | Sourcebot is designed to be self-hosted and ships as a single Docker container for deployment on a user's infrastructure, on-premises or in the cloud. |
| Purpose | OpenGrok is a Java source code search and cross-reference engine for searching, cross-referencing, and navigating source trees. | Sourcebot is a self-hosted tool that helps humans and agents search, navigate, and understand complex enterprise codebases. |
| Support | The project directs users to discussions and mailing lists, and asks users to report bugs or feature requests through GitHub Issues. | Basic includes community support, Pro includes onboarding support, and Enterprise includes a dedicated support engineer and SLAs. |
Plans
In their own words
OpenGrok
OpenGrok is a Java source code search and cross-reference engine for searching and navigating source trees. It searches full text, definitions, symbols, paths and revision history, with subtree searches, wildcards and date-range filters. Its read-only web interface provides syntax-highlighted cross-references, file and directory history, and revision diffs. Supported revision control systems include Git, Mercurial, Subversion, CVS, Perforce, ClearCase, Bazaar, Monotone, Razor, RCS, SCCS, Teamware and AccuRev. Plugins can add support for programming languages or revision control systems. The web application provides a REST API under `/api/v1/` and a granular authorization framework; authentication is handled by the application server or a reverse proxy. Setup requires creating an index and deploying the web application. The guide lists Java 21 through 25, Universal Ctags and a servlet container such as Tomcat 10.x. OpenGrok is free and open source under the CDDL license, and is maintained by volunteers. Support and project requests go through discussions, mailing lists and GitHub Issues.
Sourcebot
Sourcebot is a self-hosted tool for searching, navigating, and understanding complex enterprise codebases. Search covers repositories and branches, with regular expressions, filters, boolean logic, and suggestions. Symbol navigation includes go to definition and find references. Its MCP server gives coding agents tools to search code, read files, and resolve symbols across an organization's repositories.
Supported code hosts include GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps, Gerrit, and Gitea, both cloud and self-managed. Ask Sourcebot connectors communicate over MCP and use the connected user's permission boundaries; documented examples include Linear and Jira. Ask Sourcebot requires at least one language model provider configured, with documented providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Bedrock, Vertex, and Mistral. Sourcebot runs as a single Docker container on customer infrastructure, on-premises or in the cloud. The company says code, indexes, queries, and AI inputs and outputs remain within the customer's environment. Basic is free; Pro costs $20 a month billed per user and includes a 14-day free trial.