Mojeek
🇬🇧Mojeek
Replaces
free
Search engines from European companies, as alternatives to Google Search and Bing, from Mojeek and its own independent index to Qwant and Ecosia, which serve results from a European index they built together.
Quick answer: There are 10 European alternatives in Search Engines from 5 countries. 6 have a free plan.
Our assessment, based only on the checked statements above.
We checked 5 of the 10 alternatives on this page against each company's own website in September 2026. Every line in the grey panels comes from that company’s own site, and a second check tried to disprove it before we kept it. A dash in the table means we could not verify that detail. "Pick it if" lines are our own assessment, based only on those checked statements.
| Product | Country | Pricing | Free plan | Open source | Self-host | Replaces |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mojeek | 🇬🇧United Kingdom | Free | No | Not verified | No | Google Search, Bing +1 |
| Qwant | 🇫🇷France | Free | Yes | No | No | Yahoo Search, Bing +1 |
| Ecosia | 🇩🇪Germany | Free | Yes | Not verified | No | Yahoo Search, Google Search +1 |
| Swisscows | 🇨🇭Switzerland | Freemium | Yes | No | No | Google Search, Yahoo Search +1 |
| MetaGer | 🇩🇪Germany | Freemium | No | Not verified | Not verified | Bing, Google Search +1 |
| Overit Denmark | 🇭🇺Hungary | Paid | Not verified | Not verified | Not verified | |
| Overit Estonia | 🇭🇺Hungary | Freemium | Yes | Not verified | Not verified | |
| Overit Bosnia | 🇭🇺Hungary | Yes | Not verified | Not verified | ||
| Overit.sk | 🇭🇺Hungary | Yes | Not verified | Not verified | ||
| Overit Serbia | 🇭🇺Hungary | Paid | Not verified | Not verified | Not verified |
A dash means we have not verified that attribute. Details and sources are on each product page.
A search engine either crawls the web itself or takes results from one that does, and that decides how different its answers can be. Mojeek runs its own crawler and says it indexes over nine billion pages. MetaGer is a metasearch engine: it combines the results of several other search engines. Swisscows credits its results to its own index and a cooperation with Brave. Qwant keeps its own index, and its privacy policy says Microsoft supplies results when Qwant does not have the answers itself. Ecosia's help centre says its results come from Microsoft Bing, Google or the joint European index, depending on your country, device and cookie settings.
Sources: Mojeek: about, MetaGer: about, Swisscows: FAQ, Qwant: privacy policy, Ecosia help: search result providers
Qwant and Ecosia announced a joint venture, European Search Perspective (EUSP), in November 2024 to build a search index they both use. It started serving part of the results for users in France in August 2025, and on 30 July 2026 heise reported that an index for Germany had launched, with Ecosia raising its share of German results gradually. Ecosia's help page, updated on 12 August 2026, still lists the joint index as available only in France. On Ecosia you can open the menu next to a result to see which provider answered.
Sources:
MetaGer is a project of SUMA-EV, a non-profit association in Hannover. Mojeek Limited is a company registered in England. Swisscows AG, based in Egnach in Switzerland, is a subsidiary of Hulbee AG. Qwant is based in Paris; in April 2023 OVHcloud's co-founders Octave and Miroslaw Klaba and the French Caisse des Dépôts announced Synfonium, a company set up to buy all of Qwant, 75% led by the Klabas and 25% held by the Caisse des Dépôts. Ecosia calls itself steward-owned and says the joint index company, unlike Ecosia, is structured to allow outside investment.
Sources: MetaGer: about, Mojeek: about, Swisscows: about, Shadow: introducing Synfonium (April 2023), Ecosia: our European search index goes live
Swisscows says its free search carries ads delivered through its partner System1 and that this advertising is not data-secure, because certain usage data must be processed; searching without ads or data sharing needs its paid Swisscows Pro. MetaGer sells keys for ad-free search, starting at 500 tokens for 5 euros. Ecosia's ads come from the same partners as its results. Qwant's privacy policy lists Microsoft Advertising among the partners allowed to show you personalised ads, with your consent.
Sources: Swisscows: FAQ, MetaGer: terms, Ecosia help: search result providers, Qwant: privacy policy
Checked in September 2026 against the sources linked under each answer.
Notable
Pick Mojeek if you want a search engine that indexes over nine billion web pages.(our assessment)
Checked against Mojeek's about page.
Qwant
Replaces
Notable
Pick Qwant if you want a separate search engine for children and educators.(our assessment)
Checked against Qwant's homepage and legal notice.
Ecosia
Replaces
Notable
Pick Ecosia if you want the results page to show which provider powered a specific search.(our assessment)
Checked against Ecosia's 579 search results providers page.
Swisscows AG
Replaces
Notable
Where it falls short
Pick Swisscows if you want a search engine that neither indexes nor displays pornographic content.(our assessment)
Checked against Swisscows's homepage, privacy policy and legal notice.
metaGer
Replaces
MetaGer is a metasearch engine.
Notable
Pricing: from 5 euros for 500 tokens (agb page)
Pick MetaGer if you want a search that combines the results of multiple search engines.(our assessment)
Checked against MetaGer's about page, homepage, agb page, legal notice and datenschutz page.