How I built a Search Engine with Next.js and MongoDB in one weekend

Source: Dev.to

The Problem 😫

Every time I start a new React project, I waste hours hopping between documentation sites.

“Does Material UI have a better Date Picker than Mantine?”
“Which library has the best‑looking Accordion?”

I ended up with 15 tabs open just to choose a dropdown menu.

The Solution 💡

I spent this weekend building UI Search — a centralized search engine for open‑source UI components.

It indexes the docs of the top 15 libraries (MUI, ShadCN, Radix, DaisyUI, etc.) so you can search once and see everything side‑by‑side.

How it Works 🛠️

It’s a full‑stack app built with:

• Next.js 14 (App Router)
• MongoDB Atlas (for storing component metadata)
• Tailwind CSS (for the UI)

I wrote a custom script that indexes the sitemaps of these documentation sites to keep the database up to date.

Try it out 🚀

It’s live and free to use: https://ui-search-engine.vercel.app

I’d love to know what you think! Are there any other libraries I should add to the index?