Overview

Sourcebot searches across repositories and branches and supports GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps, Gerrit and Gitea, including cloud and self-managed installations. That breadth is useful to organizations with varied code-hosting setups. Its single Docker container runs on customer infrastructure, on-premises or in the cloud, so it is a poor fit for teams seeking a hosted service that requires no deployment work.

The company says code, indexes, search queries, and AI inputs and outputs stay within the customer’s environment. With permission syncing configured, code context requests respect repository permissions from connected code hosts. Those controls are meaningful for teams managing sensitive code, but permission syncing and infrastructure setup are part of the operational burden.

Key features

Search and navigation

Search spans repositories and branches, with regular expressions, filters, boolean logic and suggestions. Basic also includes Git history and blame, a file explorer and a code viewer. That makes the free plan useful for cross-repository discovery, not merely a limited preview. Symbol navigation, including go to definition and find references, is reserved for Pro, so teams that depend on those workflows should account for the per-user cost.

Agent context

The MCP server lets coding agents search code, read files and resolve symbols across an organization’s repositories. Ask Sourcebot connectors also use MCP and follow the connected user’s permission boundaries; documented examples include Linear and Jira. Ask Sourcebot requires at least one language model provider in the configuration, with documented options including OpenAI, Anthropic, Bedrock, Vertex and Mistral. This gives teams a route to agent-assisted code context, but it is not a model-free feature that can simply be switched on without setup.

Pricing

Basic costs 0.00 USD per free. It includes code search, regex, symbol and filtered search, Git history and blame, file exploration and viewing, a single Docker image, and community support. It is a credible option for teams focused on search and browsing; it gives up Ask Sourcebot, agent code context, code navigation, SSO, audit logs, permission syncing and organization management.

Pro costs 20.00 USD per month, billed per user / month, and includes everything in Basic plus Ask Sourcebot, agent code context, code navigation, SSO, audit logs, permission syncing, organization management and onboarding support. A 14-day free trial lets a team evaluate those paid workflows, but the ongoing per-user price makes team size central to the decision.

Enterprise has custom pricing and includes everything in Pro, a dedicated Slack support channel, a dedicated support engineer and SLAs, a custom MSA and an offline license. It is aimed at organizations that need those support and licensing terms rather than a published flat rate. Basic includes community support; Pro adds onboarding support.

Platforms

Sourcebot is available as a web and API product and is self-hosted. Its deployment is a single Docker container on infrastructure the customer controls, in a cloud environment or on-premises. This suits teams able to operate their own deployment, but not those looking for a conventional desktop app or vendor-hosted setup.

Who it's for

Sourcebot is strongest for organizations with complex, multi-repository codebases that want cross-host search and agent context within their own environment. Basic fits teams that need repository search and browsing without agent features. Pro makes more sense when symbol navigation, coding-agent access and organization controls justify a per-user subscription. Teams that do not want to configure and maintain a self-hosted deployment, or configure a model provider for Ask Sourcebot, should look elsewhere.

Pros and cons

Broad code-host coverage: supports six named code hosts, including self-managed installations, which helps organizations with mixed hosting.
Useful free search tier: Basic includes cross-repository search, history, blame and browsing without a subscription.
Customer-controlled data: the company says code and AI-related data stay within the customer’s environment; permission syncing can honor code-host repository access.
Agent and navigation work costs more: Ask Sourcebot, agent context and code navigation require Pro at $20.00 USD per month per user.
Setup is a prerequisite: teams must deploy the container themselves, and Ask Sourcebot needs a configured language model provider.

Alternatives

Code Search Tools is a useful starting point for comparing products in the category. Choose Code Search instead if an unlimited-user community plan with full-text search, repository-wide find and replace, CLI and MCP, and SCIP code intelligence better fits the need. sqry is the free, locally running, MIT-licensed option for readers who want an open-source tool on Linux, macOS or Windows.

searchcode offers a free beta plan for public GitHub repositories. ast-grep is a free option for readers seeking an API, extension, web or desktop-platform choice. LeIndex is another free option, including self-hosted and web availability. Shebe is worth considering for free local code search under an Apache-2.0 license.

Understand is a freemium alternative with a free plan and trial; its annual subscription is 100120.00 USD per year, with a 12-month minimum term. Sourcegraph Code Search is a paid alternative with a minimum annual contract starting at 16000.00 USD per year, scaling with team size and including AI feature credits.

Verdict

Choose Sourcebot if your organization needs repository-wide search and agent context while keeping code workflows on infrastructure it controls. Its free Basic plan makes search accessible, and Pro combines agent tools, navigation and organization controls in one per-user tier. Look elsewhere if self-hosting and model-provider configuration are unwanted responsibilities, or if Pro’s per-user cost does not fit the team.

	Searchfox	Sourcebot
Free plan	No	Yes
Free trial	No	Yes
Paid from	—	$20/mo
Open source	No	No
Platforms	Web	api, self-hosted, Web
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Indexing scope	organization	organization
Deployment	cloud	hybrid
Regex search	Yes	Yes
Code navigation	Yes	Yes
IDE extensions	No	—
Paid from	—	20 /user/mo

Searchfox vs Sourcebot

Searchfox

Sourcebot