Elasticsearch vs Meilisearch
Elasticsearch: Lucene-based distributed search and analytics engine for text, vectors, logs and metrics. Meilisearch: Developer-friendly Rust search engine with typo tolerance and built-in hybrid semantic search.
key differences
- Licensing: Elasticsearch is open source (copyleft) (AGPL-3.0, SSPL 1.0 or Elastic License 2.0 (your choice)); Meilisearch is open source (permissive) (MIT (Community Edition); BUSL-1.1 for Enterprise Edition features).
- Elasticsearch is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than Meilisearch (≤ 10 TB).
- Horizontal scaling is native in Elasticsearch and addon in Meilisearch.
- Only Elasticsearch has joins, compression, online schema changes, streaming ingest.
- Elasticsearch has a serverless option; Meilisearch does not.
choose elasticsearch for
- +E-commerce and site search with faceting
- +Log, metrics and SIEM analytics
- +Hybrid keyword plus semantic retrieval for RAG
- +Geospatial search and aggregations
best at · Search, Vector search, RAG
choose meilisearch for
- +Website and documentation search
- +E-commerce product search with facets
- +SaaS in-app search
- +Semantic search over a product catalog
best at · Search, Vector search, RAG
Elasticsearch vs Meilisearch: FAQ
What is the difference between Elasticsearch and Meilisearch?
Elasticsearch: Lucene-based distributed search and analytics engine for text, vectors, logs and metrics. Meilisearch: Developer-friendly Rust search engine with typo tolerance and built-in hybrid semantic search. Licensing: Elasticsearch is open source (copyleft) (AGPL-3.0, SSPL 1.0 or Elastic License 2.0 (your choice)); Meilisearch is open source (permissive) (MIT (Community Edition); BUSL-1.1 for Enterprise Edition features). Elasticsearch is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than Meilisearch (≤ 10 TB). Horizontal scaling is native in Elasticsearch and addon in Meilisearch.
When should I choose Elasticsearch over Meilisearch?
Choose Elasticsearch for E-commerce and site search with faceting; log, metrics and SIEM analytics; and hybrid keyword plus semantic retrieval for RAG. Choose Meilisearch for website and documentation search; E-commerce product search with facets; and SaaS in-app search.
Is Elasticsearch or Meilisearch more popular?
Elasticsearch ranks #6 on the WhichDB Score (75.1/100) and Meilisearch ranks #72 (32.3/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.
Are Elasticsearch and Meilisearch open source?
Yes. Elasticsearch is open source. License: AGPL-3.0, SSPL 1.0 or Elastic License 2.0 (your choice). Yes. Meilisearch is open source. License: MIT (Community Edition); BUSL-1.1 for Enterprise Edition features.