Shebe vs sqry
Shebe
github.com
sqry
sqry.devSide by side
| Figure | Shebe | sqry |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Code Search Tools | 7.8 (#12) | 7.8 (#14) |
| Local processing | The project describes Shebe as requiring no embeddings, GPU, or cloud service. | The product says it runs entirely on the user's machine, with no source code leaving the machine and no telemetry. |
| MCP tools | Shebe provides 14 MCP tools for coding agents, including search, repository indexing, file reading, and reference finding. | The standalone MCP server exposes 39 tools, while daemon mode provides a curated subset of 16 tools. |
| Purpose | Shebe is a local code-search tool that uses BM25 full-text search for code repositories. | sqry parses source code into an abstract syntax tree and symbol graph to answer structural code queries such as who calls a function. |
| Security | The README says Shebe runs locally and uses no cloud service; the linked security policy page could not be fetched during this research. | Public releases include checksums and Sigstore DSSE attestation metadata, and the installation scripts verify checksums by default. |
Plans
In their own words
Shebe
Shebe is a local code-search tool that uses BM25 full-text search across code repositories. It ranks results and supports phrase searches, Boolean queries, and literal matching. Fourteen MCP tools serve coding agents with functions including search, repository indexing, file reading, and reference finding. Shebe runs without embeddings, a GPU, or a cloud service, but repositories must be cloned locally before indexing; remote repository URLs are not supported. Its text-based search does not provide semantic similarity, so related words such as “login” and “authenticate” may not match. Prebuilt binaries are listed for Linux x86_64 and macOS on Apple Silicon and Intel; Linux ARM64 is planned. Windows users need to build it from source. The installation guide covers MCP setup and Zed configuration and points to the organization for VS Code and other editor extensions. Shebe is free and licensed under Apache-2.0. The README reports 2 ms query latency and indexing rates from 1,928 to 11,210 files per second in its listed benchmarks.
sqry
sqry is an open-source code analysis tool from Verivus Pty Ltd. It parses source code into an abstract syntax tree and a graph of symbols and relationships, then answers structural questions such as which functions call another. Its documented queries cover callers, callees, implementations, dependency cycles and unused symbols. The project lists 37 language plugins: 28 support full relation tracking, while nine extract symbols and imports. Users build an index before querying; it persists so later queries can load the cached graph snapshot. sqry runs locally on Linux, macOS and Windows, under the MIT license. Its maker says source code stays on the machine and the tool has no telemetry. It offers an MCP server for AI assistants, with 39 tools in standalone mode and a curated subset of 16 in daemon mode. An LSP server works with VS Code, Neovim, Helix and LSP 3.17 clients. Installers are listed for the three desktop platforms, as is cargo installation. Windows executables require bundled MinGW runtime DLLs; the release ZIP includes them.