For teams with more repos than anyone can remember

Source Code Search Engine and Source Code Search Tools for Private GitHub Repos

Public code search engines index open source. Your team needs one that indexes your own code: the private services, the old monolith, the shared libraries nobody has opened in a year. CodeIndex is a hosted source code search engine for private GitHub repositories that finds code by what it does and answers questions about it with file citations.

Start 14-day trial See pricing

14-day trial on the plan you choose. Card charged only when it ends. Nothing to install.

codeindex.ai/repositories/add

Short answer

A source code search engine for a company indexes its private repositories so engineers can find code across all of them at once. CodeIndex does this as a hosted service for GitHub: connect public or private repos, search by keyword or by meaning, and ask plain-English questions that come back with the exact files and lines cited. It costs $49 a month for 5 users and 10 repos or $149 a month for 20 users and 50 repos, billed annually ($99 or $299 month to month).

File extensions indexed, from PHP and Go to TypeScript, Python and SQL

50 repos

Included on Pro, searched together from one box

$149/mo

CodeIndex Pro billed annually, 20 users

Search servers, index jobs or model keys for your team to run

Engineering lead sketching a system architecture for colleagues at a whiteboard

Your codebase is bigger than any one person's memory

Once a team passes a dozen repositories, nobody can say off the top of their head where retries are configured or which service owns customer emails. Engineers fall back to asking in Slack, and the same three seniors answer every time. A search engine over all of your source turns that question into a ten second lookup.

What a source code search engine for your company should do

Keyword search finds code when you already know its name. Most of the time, you do not. CodeIndex covers both cases across every connected repository.

Search every repo at once

One query runs across all connected repositories, so you find the shared helper in the billing service and the copy someone pasted into the API gateway in the same result list.

Find code by meaning

Ask for "where we retry failed webhook deliveries" and get the job class even if the word retry never appears in it. Semantic search matches intent, not only tokens.

Answers that cite sources

Ask a question in plain English and get an explanation built from your code, with file paths and line ranges for every claim so a reviewer can check it in one click.

Private repos, your branch

Public and private GitHub repositories both work. Choose the branch to index instead of being limited to the default branch.

Skips the noise

Vendor folders, node_modules, build output, lockfiles and minified bundles are left out of the index, so results point at code your team wrote.

API for internal tools

Pro and Enterprise include API access, so a Slack bot, a support tool or an internal portal can query the same index your engineers use.

Source code search tools compared for a company codebase

An honest view of the main options. Self-hosted tools win on control and code host coverage. CodeIndex wins when your code is on GitHub and you want search and answers without running anything.

	GitHub code search	Zoekt or Hound	Sourcebot	Sourcegraph	CodeIndex
Hosting	Hosted by GitHub	Self-hosted	Self-hosted	Single-tenant cloud or self-hosted	Hosted
Price	Included with GitHub	Free, open source	Free Basic, Pro $20/user/mo	Enterprise from $16,000/yr	From $49/mo billed annually
Search by meaning	No, keyword and regex	No, keyword and regex	Ask Sourcebot with your own LLM key	Deep Search, credit based	Yes
Plain-English answers with citations	Through Copilot seats	No	Yes, on Pro	Yes, on Enterprise	Yes, every plan
Code hosts	GitHub	Git	GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and more	Many	GitHub only
Best for	Quick lookups on the default branch	Fast regex on your own hardware	Teams that must self-host	Large orgs on many hosts	GitHub teams of 5 to 50

GitHub limits from docs.github.com. Sourcebot, Sourcegraph and CodeIndex prices from their pricing pages, checked October 2026.

How to set up a search engine over your source code

1
Paste a GitHub URL

Enter a repository address in the box at the top of this page and create your account. Sign in with GitHub to grant access to private repos.
2
Add the rest of your repos

Connect the services, libraries and infrastructure repos your team touches. Starter covers 10 repos, Pro covers 50 and Enterprise has no limit.
3
Let the index build

Most repositories are searchable within minutes. CodeIndex parses 40 file types and skips vendor and generated files.
4
Invite the team and search

Invite engineers, QA and product by email. Everyone searches the same index and sees answers with file citations.

Who buys a source code search engine

Teams that split a monolith

After a move to services, logic that used to live in one repo is spread across ten. Cross-repo search shows every place a contract or field is used before you change it.

Engineering managers hiring this quarter

New hires do not know the names to search for. Plain-English questions get them to the right file without pulling a senior engineer off their own work.

Support and QA engineers

People who need to know how a feature really behaves can ask the code directly instead of waiting for a developer to read it for them.

Teams leaving a self-hosted search box

If an old OpenGrok, Hound or Zoekt server is the only reason anyone maintains a VM, a hosted index removes the upkeep and adds semantic search.

What is the best source code search engine for a company?

The best source code search engine for a company on GitHub is one that indexes private repositories, searches all of them at once and understands intent, not only exact words. For teams of 5 to 50 that do not want to run servers, a hosted tool such as CodeIndex fits that brief for a flat monthly price. Teams that must keep code on their own network should look at Sourcebot or Zoekt, and organizations with hundreds of repos on several code hosts at Sourcegraph Enterprise.

Public engines like searchcode or grep.app are useful for open source, but they cannot see your private code, so they answer a different question.

How do I search source code across multiple repositories?

To search source code across multiple repositories, connect them all to one index and query that index instead of each repo. In CodeIndex you add each GitHub repository once, and every search and question then runs across all of them together, with results labeled by repo and file. GitHub's own code search can also span repos, but it only covers the default branch, skips files over 350 KiB and returns up to 100 results per query.

Can I search private GitHub repositories by meaning?

Yes. A semantic code search tool builds an embedding index of your code so a query like "where do we lock an account after failed logins" matches the function that does it, whatever it is named. GitHub code search matches keywords and regex. CodeIndex adds semantic search and cited answers on top of private GitHub repos. See our GitHub code search alternative page for a closer comparison.

How much does enterprise code search cost?

Enterprise code search ranges from free self-hosted engines to five-figure contracts. Zoekt, Hound and OpenGrok are free but you run them. Sourcebot Pro is $20 per user per month on your own servers. Sourcegraph Enterprise starts at $16,000 a year. CodeIndex is $49, $149 or $499 a month billed annually depending on users and repos, with SSO and SAML on Enterprise. Our Sourcebot pricing breakdown shows the self-hosting costs in detail.

What CodeIndex does not do

Know the limits before you buy. CodeIndex indexes GitHub repositories only, not GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps or Subversion. It is hosted, so it does not fit policies that forbid code leaving your network. There is no IDE extension and no batch refactoring across repos. If you need those, compare the self-hosted options on our Sourcegraph alternatives page.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a search engine for private source code?

Yes. Public code search engines only index open source, but tools like CodeIndex, Sourcebot and Sourcegraph index your private repositories. CodeIndex is hosted and works with private GitHub repos from $49 a month billed annually, with semantic search and answers that cite files.

Does CodeIndex search all branches?

You choose the branch to index when you connect a repository, so you are not limited to the default branch the way GitHub code search is. Each connected repo counts toward your plan's repo limit.

Which languages does the search engine support?

CodeIndex indexes 40 file extensions, including PHP, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, Ruby, Java, C#, Rust, SQL and common config formats. It skips vendor folders, node_modules, build output, lockfiles and minified bundles.

How large a repository can I index?

The maximum repo size is 100 MB on Starter, 500 MB on Pro and 2 GB on Enterprise. Most service repositories fit easily on Starter or Pro.

How much does CodeIndex cost?

Starter is $49 a month billed annually ($99 month to month) for 5 users and 10 repos. Pro is $149 a month billed annually ($299 monthly) for 20 users, 50 repos and API access. Enterprise is $499 a month billed annually ($999 monthly) with unlimited users and repos and SSO.

Can I try it on our own code first?

Yes. Every plan starts with a 14-day trial and the card is charged only when it ends. Connect one of your real private repos and see whether the answers hold up before the team relies on it.

Search all of your source code from one box

Connect a GitHub repo and run your first search by meaning in minutes. 14-day trial, card charged only when it ends.

Start 14-day trial Compare plans