Rats on The Boat - BitTorrent Search Engine

A high-performance BitTorrent search program for desktop and server. It collects and indexes torrents from the DHT network, allowing powerful full-text search through torrent statistics and categories. Works over an encrypted P2P network and supports Windows, Linux, and macOS platforms.

Features

Core Search & Indexing

• Works over P2P torrent network, doesn't require any trackers
• DHT crawling and automatic torrent indexing
• Full-text search over torrent collection (powered by Manticore Search)
• Torrent and files search
• Search filters (size ranges, files, seeders, etc.)
• Collection filters (regex filters, adult filters)
• Tracker peers scan support
• Collects only statistical information and doesn't save any internal torrent data
• Database export/import: dump the whole index to a portable .ratsdb file and merge it back (resumable)

P2P Network & Security

• Supports its own P2P protocol for additional data transfer (search between Rats clients, descriptions/votes transfer, etc.)
• End-to-end encryption with Noise Protocol (Curve25519 + ChaCha20-Poly1305)
• P2P Search protocol: Search in other Rats clients with encrypted communication
• BitTorrent Mainline DHT compatible (millions of nodes)
• mDNS Discovery for automatic local network peer discovery
• NAT Traversal with STUN/ICE support for connecting through firewalls
• GossipSub messaging for scalable publish-subscribe protocol
• Database transfer between clients: download a peer's whole index over P2P (opt-in sharing on the serving side)
• Supports torrent rating (voting)
• Description association from trackers
• Top list (most common and popular torrents)
• Feed list (Rats clients activity feed)

Torrent Client

• Integrated torrent client for downloading
• Drag and drop torrents (expand local search database with specific torrents)
• Torrent generation and automatic adding to search database

User Experience

• Native C++/Qt application — fast, responsive, and lightweight
• Modern dark UI with customizable settings
• System tray support with minimize/close to tray
• Translations: English, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, German, Spanish, French
• Console mode for headless server operation
• REST & WebSocket API for custom clients and integrations

Screenshots

Architecture

Rats Search is built on librats — a high-performance P2P networking library providing:

Download

⬇️ Download the latest release for Windows, Linux, or macOS.

Building from Source

Requirements

• CMake 3.16+
• Qt 6.9+ (with WebSockets module)
• C++17 compatible compiler (MSVC, GCC, or Clang)
• Ninja (recommended) or Make

Build Instructions

Clone the repository with submodules:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/DEgITx/rats-search.git
cd rats-search

Configure and build:

cmake -B build -G "Ninja" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --config Release

The executable will be in build/bin/.

Build Options

Running

GUI Mode (Default)

Simply run the executable:

./RatsSearch

Command line options:

Console Mode (Headless/Server)

For servers without a display, use console mode:

./RatsSearch --console

Console mode options:

Console mode runs unattended: it starts every subsystem, logs to <data-dir>/rats-search.log, and exits on Ctrl+C. It reads no commands from stdin — to query or drive a running instance, enable the REST API ("restApi": true) and use the HTTP/WebSocket API.

Example:

# Start with the spider forced on
./RatsSearch --console --spider --data-dir /var/lib/rats-search

# Or start with custom ports
./RatsSearch -c -p 4445 -d 4446 -s

Configuration

After first launch, a configuration file rats.json will be created in the data directory:

{
    "p2pPort": 4445,
    "dhtPort": 4446,
    "httpPort": 8095,
    "restApi": true,
    "indexer": true,
    "darkMode": true
}

API

Rats Search includes a built-in REST API server for integrations and custom clients.

📖 API Documentation

Usage Manuals

• English
• Russian

Contributing

We welcome all contributions: bug fixes, improvements, code refactoring, and other enhancements.

• Translation Guide
• Tracker Support

Docker

Run Rats Search in a container (console mode, no GUI):

docker build -t rats-search .
docker run -d -p 8095:8095 -v rats-data:/data rats-search

The default command starts the spider with 30 max P2P peers. Override as needed:

docker run -d \
  -p 8095:8095 \
  -v rats-data:/data \
  rats-search \
  /app/RatsSearch --console --spider --max-peers 100 --data-dir /data

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Legacy Version (1.x — Electron/Node.js)

The previous Electron-based version is preserved in the legacy/ folder for reference and for running the web server interface.

Running the Legacy Web Server

cd legacy
npm install --force
npm run buildweb
npm run server

Access the web interface at: http://localhost:8095

Legacy Server Configuration

Server Compatibility Notes

Support & Donation

Bitcoin: bc1pmzppgyj3qlveeqzpuza3j079wjskdf56nk7f2pd7mqc6fl53yr8su93kpx

Subscribe to autor (GitHub donations): https://github.com/sponsors/DEgITx

Contacts

• Discord Community
• GitHub Issues
• Twitter/X: @RatsSearch

License

MIT License © 2026