I'm looking into self-hosting a SearXNG instance for my own use. One thing I don't get is how the results are aggregated if I'm using a local instance. Is it just going to all the configured search engines and making requests? If that's the case, what's the benefit of using SearXNG instead of just going to that search engine myself from a privacy perspective?
You can run your searxng on a VPS, and then it'll hide your IP address.
In most cloud provides you can also change your machine's IP address so there's also that.