Meilisearch
Open source search engine with a simple API
FreeAPIOpen Source1 impressions
Meilisearch is an open-source search engine with a simple API offering fast full-text, semantic and multimodal search.
- for
- Developers building search-enabled web, mobile or enterprise applications.
- pricing
- freemium · free trial
- license
- open source
Key features
- Search-as-you-type — Returns results in under 50 ms for instant user feedback.
- Hybrid search — Combines full-text efficiency with semantic embeddings for deeper relevance.
- Multimodal search — Indexes and queries images, video and audio alongside text using AI embeddings.
- Faceting & filtering — Provides powerful faceting, filtering and sorting to build complex search interfaces.
- Vector storage — Stores vectors for similarity queries and Retrieval-Augmented Generation use cases.
- Federated search — Searches across multiple data sources in a single query.
- Search analytics — Delivers actionable insights on queries, clicks and conversions.
- Geosearch — Filters and sorts results based on geographic location.
Use cases
- Instant autocomplete and product search for e-commerce sites.
- Semantic document retrieval for knowledge bases and RAG applications.
- Media asset discovery across images, video and audio libraries.
- Location-based listings for real-estate or local services.
- Enterprise-wide search across multiple internal data silos.
Meilisearch pricing
- Cloud Starter$20/month/month14-day free trial · Usage-based billing · Fully managed
- Base plan$30/month/month100K docs, 50K searches · Usage-based
- XS instance$23/month/month0.5 vCPU, 1 GB RAM · Resource-based
- Instance$18/mo/monthCustom instance size
- Disk$5/mo/month32 GiB storage
Meilisearch vs alternatives
 Meilisearch |  Algolia |  Typesense |  Elasticsearch | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Fast, relevant search with AI-enhanced capabilities | Managed search with extensive UI widgets | Open-source search you can self-host with fine-grained tuning | Scalable analytics-heavy search |
| Pricing | Freemium | Subscription | Free | Subscription |
| DevHunt upvotes | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Launched | — | — | — | — |
- Meilisearch vs Algolia: Algolia is a hosted SaaS search service with a larger enterprise focus and pricing model.
- Meilisearch vs Typesense: Typesense is also open source with typo tolerance and vector search; it keeps the index in memory and exposes more ranking controls.
- Meilisearch vs Elasticsearch: Elasticsearch is a distributed search and analytics engine requiring more operational overhead.
Meilisearch FAQ
Should I self-host or use Cloud?+
Self-hosting is free and gives full control, but you manage updates and scaling; Cloud is fully managed with automatic upgrades and email support.
Is there a free trial?+
Yes, the Cloud plan includes a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
Can I self-host for free?+
Yes, Meilisearch is open source under the MIT license and can be deployed on your own infrastructure without usage limits.
How do I choose the right instance size?+
Use the cost estimator on the pricing page, which matches instance size to document count, search volume and document size.
Can I get dedicated support while self-hosting?+
Yes, you can purchase a support agreement with SLA and advanced features for self-hosted deployments.
Summarized by DevHunt from meilisearch.com · Oct 1, 2026. Details may change; check the official site.
About this listing
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