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NOTE: Zest is now unmaintained. Do not expect updates or support.

Sadly, I've decided I'm trying too many things at once, so I want to avoid distractions such as Zest, and similarly to Zeal I've decided to stop maintaining Zest.

See more information on this project's status on its GitHub README page.

Offline search tool for developers.

Find what you need without the need for Internet access.

Unique Set of Features


Search both in symbol names and documentation contents

Full Text Search

Allows finding detailed information not available in document names.

Stack Overflow local dump

Your own local indexed copy of Stack Overflow downloaded via BitTorrent.

Open Source

All-open source with DevDocs documentation support.

How it Works


Zest is a hybrid application combining HTML with desktop capabilities thanks to GitHub's Electron.

It uses LucenePlusPlus search engine implemented in C++, for instant Full Text Search results.

Thanks to lots of hard work put into implementing open source scrapers by DevDocs it's possible to quickly search over combined sets of API documentation.

The Internet Archive kindly provides Stack Exchange data as a torrent which allows searching questions and answers locally without Internet access.

  • Battle-tested downloadable documentation
  • Fast C++ code

Story behind it

If you are interested in more context and motivation behind Zest, you can see read these two blog posts outlining the history:

Download The Application

Preview Release available on GitHub.
MIT-licensed.