pagefind VS paperless-ngx

Pagefind is a static search library that aims to perform well on small or large sites, while using as little bandwidth as possible, and you don't have to host any infrastructure.

In theory, if we ran lower level code, we would be using less resources. That's more than a theory. Go to this video where I demonstrate Pagefind, written in Rust and compiled to Wasm as target, as a static app that ingests and indexes HTML documents and runs super efficient search queries, all client-side.

✅ Pagefind static search library integration

I use Astro SSG and Cloudflare Pages. I use https://github.com/cloudcannon/pagefind for search on my Astro setup. You can test the search functionality here https://tinyrocket.pages.dev/.

From its repo: "Pagefind runs after any static site generator and automatically indexes the built static files. Pagefind then outputs a static search bundle to your website, and exposes a JavaScript search API that can be used anywhere on your site."

Pagefind is cool!

An option there is https://pagefind.app/ — not as fast as a persistent server but solves some of the deployment and bandwidth issues.

I steered a friend towards Paperless (and away from an LLM solution) as a way of searching/accessing GBs of architectural PDFs recently - so far, it’s apparently working well for them.

https://github.com/paperless-ngx/paperless-ngx

Paperless-ngx is a document management system that transforms your physical documents into a searchable online archive so you can find your physical documents easier. With features such as tags, full text search, multi-user permissions system, this is a dream for those who like to keep an organized folder of files and documents.

Since last year I’ve been configuring and maintaining my homelab setup and it is just amazing.

I’ve learned so much about containers, virtual machines and networking. Some of the self hosted applications like paperless-ngx [1] and immich [2] are much superior in terms of features than the proprietary cloud solutions.

With the addition of VPN services like tailscale [3] now I can access my homelab from anywhere in the world.

The only thing missing is to setup a low powered machine like NUC or any mini PC so I can offload the services I need 24/7 and save electricity costs.

If you can maintain it and have enough energy on weekends to perform routine maintenance and upgrades. I would 100% recommend setting up your own homelab.

[1] https://docs.paperless-ngx.com/

This has been posted a few times already, but I cannot tell you how life changing Paperless NGX is for organizing PDFs. As someone who wrangles all of the insurance and bills for my house, this open source software is so damn good.

https://docs.paperless-ngx.com/

I maintain Bash script to quickly set it up locally on Linux with Podman. Give it a spin if you want to kick the tires.

https://github.com/jdoss/ppngx

Personally, I use https://github.com/joeyates/imap-backup to archive all my emails and then only keep them on the remote server for as long as I need to (basically until I read them and respond or download an attachment into https://docs.paperless-ngx.com )