Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Sourcegraph VS Zoekt

Compare Sourcegraph VS Zoekt and see what are their differences

Sourcegraph logo Sourcegraph

Sourcegraph is a free, self-hosted code search and intelligence server that helps developers find, review, understand, and debug code. Use it with any Git code host for teams from 1 to 10,000+.

Zoekt logo Zoekt

Zoekt is a text search engine, intended for use with source code.
  • Sourcegraph Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-06
  • Zoekt Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-06

Sourcegraph features and specs

  • Code Search
    Sourcegraph offers powerful, fast, and precise code search across large codebases, which helps developers quickly find references, definitions, or implementations.
  • Cross-Repository Search
    Allows searching across multiple repositories within the same interface, enhancing discoverability and productivity.
  • Integrations
    Sourcegraph integrates with popular code hosting platforms like GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and more, providing a seamless experience.
  • Code Intelligence
    Supports advanced code intelligence features like hover tooltips, go-to-definition, and find-references, making code navigation easier.
  • Extensibility
    Developers can extend Sourcegraph's functionality with custom extensions, adapting it to their specific needs.
  • Data Privacy
    Sourcegraph can be self-hosted, giving organizations control over their code and data privacy.
  • Multi-Language Support
    Supports a wide range of programming languages and continuously adds more, catering to diverse development environments.

Possible disadvantages of Sourcegraph

  • Complex Setup
    Setting up Sourcegraph, especially self-hosted versions, can be complicated and time-consuming, requiring a good understanding of DevOps practices.
  • Resource Intensive
    Sourcegraph can be resource-heavy, necessitating significant computational power and memory, especially for large codebases.
  • Cost
    While there is a free tier, advanced features and self-hosted options can be expensive for small teams or individual developers.
  • Learning Curve
    The myriad of features and customizations can result in a steep learning curve for new users, potentially slowing down initial adoption.
  • Limited Offline Support
    While Sourcegraph provides robust online features, its functionality is limited when offline, which can impact productivity in environments with restricted internet access.
  • Dependency on Code Hosts
    Sourcegraph's heavy reliance on integrations with external code hosting platforms can introduce friction if there are changes or issues with those services.

Zoekt features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Analysis of Sourcegraph

Overall verdict

  • Sourcegraph is generally regarded as a good tool for software development teams that need robust support for code search and analysis. It can significantly improve productivity and collaboration by making it easier to explore, understand, and manage code.

Why this product is good

  • Sourcegraph is a powerful code search and navigation tool that helps developers understand and manage large codebases efficiently. It offers features like precise code navigation, cross-repository searching, advanced code intelligence, and integrations with other development tools, which streamline the process of working with complex projects.

Recommended for

  • Large and complex codebases
  • Development teams working on multiple repositories
  • Organizations emphasizing code quality and maintainability
  • Developers seeking improved code navigation and search capabilities

Sourcegraph videos

Code review with IDE powers: Sourcegraph Chrome extension

More videos:

  • Review - Better code reviews on GitHub with the Sourcegraph browser extension
  • Review - Sourcegraph's new GitLab native integration

Zoekt videos

TestKees zoekt de ideale fietspiegel

More videos:

  • Review - Pigmentvlekken & Zwangerschapsmasker verwijderen | Sanny zoekt Geluk
  • Review - Drone zoekt blinde Binky

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Sourcegraph and Zoekt)
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Git
78 78%
22% 22
Software Development
72 72%
28% 28
Code Collaboration
81 81%
19% 19

User comments

Share your experience with using Sourcegraph and Zoekt. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Sourcegraph seems to be a lot more popular than Zoekt. While we know about 34 links to Sourcegraph, we've tracked only 3 mentions of Zoekt. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Sourcegraph mentions (34)

  • Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?
    This is a product by Sourcegraph https://sourcegraph.com who already have a solution in this space. Is this something wildly different to Cody, your existing solution, or just a "subtle" attempt to gain more customers? - Source: Hacker News / 20 days ago
  • Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2025)
    Sourcegraph | San Francisco / Remote | Full-Time | SWE, Database Platform Eng, Forward Deployed Eng, Solutions Eng, Dev Advocate (all roles write code) | https://sourcegraph.com Sourcegraph is how enterprises industrialize software development with AI. We accelerate and automate how software is built in the world's most important companies, including 7/10 top software companies by market cap and 4/6 top US banks.... - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • Quickly build UI components with AI
    Cody by Sourcegraph can transform how you build UI components, from basic buttons to complex, dynamic systems. It handles the heavy lifting so you can focus on crafting good UI/UX designs. Whether you’re customising components or managing complex UI systems, Cody provides the tools to make the process faster and more efficient. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • 22 Unique Developer Resources You Should Explore
    URL: https://sourcegraph.com What it does: A universal code search tool for navigating large codebases. Why it's great: Quickly locate what you need in vast repositories — ideal for collaboration! - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Copilot vs. Cody: All you need to know
    What is Sourcegraph Cody? Cody, introduced by Sourcegraph, is an AI-powered coding assistant designed to use advanced search and codebase context to help you understand, write, and fix code faster. Launched in 2023, Cody aims to provide deeper context and more accurate code suggestions, particularly for complex and large-scale projects. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
View more

Zoekt mentions (3)

  • Improving GitHub Code Search
    For the grepping aspect, https://github.com/google/zoekt is a powerful one-stop-shop. For the navigating, I don't know. SourceGraph maybe, but the linking is somewhat heuristic I assume, not compilation-graph powered. But maybe that changes or depends per language. - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
  • Improving GitHub Code Search
    Given the shoutouts to Burntsushi and Lemire this is almost certainly a bitmap trigram index based engine similar to https://github.com/google/zoekt The index is likely based on Roaring bitmaps, presumably https://github.com/RoaringBitmap/roaring-rs in this case. Nice architecture, exactly how I would have done it also. - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
  • Facebook open sources Glean, its scalable code search and query engine
    The latest index/search engine is https://github.com/google/zoekt. Source: almost 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Sourcegraph and Zoekt, you can also consider the following products

OpenGrok - OpenGrok is a fast and usable source code search and cross reference engine.

Atlassian Fisheye - With FishEye you can search code, visualize and report on activity and find for commits, files, revisions, or teammates across SVN, Git, Mercurial, CVS and Perforce.

codespell.ai - AI-Powered Code Completion for Faster SDLC

Krugle - Krugle is the complete enterprise solution for search targeted to the development organization. 

GitHub - Originally founded as a project to simplify sharing code, GitHub has grown into an application used by over a million people to store over two million code repositories, making GitHub the largest code host in the world.

Etsy Hound - Hound is an extremely fast source code search engine.Â