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Algolia vs Elastic Search comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Algolia
Ranking in Search as a Service
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Elastic Search
Ranking in Search as a Service
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
Indexing and Search (1st), Cloud Data Integration (6th), Vector Databases (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Search as a Service category, the mindshare of Algolia is 9.8%, up from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Search is 18.5%, up from 13.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Search as a Service Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Elastic Search18.5%
Algolia9.8%
Other71.7%
Search as a Service
 

Featured Reviews

Zaid bin junaid  - PeerSpot reviewer
Growth and Product Manager at Flash.co
Navigation has needed simplification while AI search has delivered faster, more relevant answers
Algolia has multiple features, but the one I love most is the AI-powered relevance, which helps us search anything within our systems. It ensures that search results are optimized using accuracy and personalization for our organization. The second feature I value is real-time indexing, which provides instant updates and ensures that search results reflect the latest content and inventory. Additionally, Algolia tailors search based on user behavior. For example, as a user, it tailors the behavior by giving preferences and context. It works on LLM models, which is the main reason they are able to personalize behavior. Another feature I appreciate is the ability to monitor search performance and conversion metrics. The reason Algolia's AI-powered relevance and real-time indexing have made a difference is that the features provided have given us an outstanding service. It works extremely well with no downtime, no defects, and no bugs. Whatever we search for, it provides instant results. That is why we prefer them over others.
MichaelSmith9 - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Unified search has powered feature‑driven research with minimal maintenance overhead
We haven't had the opportunity to use the hybrid search with Elastic Search yet. I think there's a place for it in our long-term solution, but we're not quite there yet. We haven't yet used any AI features built into Elastic Search. To do what we want to do with Elastic Search, the queries can get complex and require a fuller understanding of the DSL. Once we start to build that understanding, it's another muscle we have, so it's not a bad thing, but it just takes a while to get up and running with expertise for our engineers. It's not hard to learn how to use more complex things in Elastic Search; it's just a challenge we're going to face.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Since Algolia is a SaaS solution, we didn't have to maintain servers, look at the indexes, and monitor services."
"The tool is easy to use, but you need to know how it works."
"Algolia provides some cool functionalities like filtering, indexing, and searching."
"The tool is worth the money, and I have seen an ROI."
"The Algolia solution really helped us to improve our conversion rate and click through rate."
"It has many fine-tuning configurations. Essentially, every single piece of information you pass through it is a free document you can tailor."
"The tool provides users with personalization features that can be used to improve user interface."
"We were working with search products, brands, and different attributes specific to the product; it's faster and easier. The implementation is easy."
"The initial installation and setup were straightforward."
"The most valuable features are the ease and speed of the setup."
"The best feature of Elastic Search that I appreciate is its monitoring capability."
"The initial setup is very easy for small environments."
"X-Pack provides good features, like authorization and alerts."
"The machine learning features of Elastic Search are very interesting, including the possibility to include models such as ELSER and different multilingual models that let us fine-tune our searches and use them in our search projects."
"It helps us to analyse the logs based on the location, user, and other log parameters."
"One thing I appreciate about Elastic Search is the ability to aggregate everything into one dashboard, so I can have monitoring, logs, and traces in one portal instead of having multiple different tools to do the same."
 

Cons

"The documentation is not beginner-friendly."
"The documentation for the service is not as good as it could be."
"I think they could improve the analytics view."
"When indexing the products, one may face some issues with the tool."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Algolia provides a certification, which is pretty basic, and I think it can be improved in terms of a bit more detail and more elaborative content."
"Joining is quite complex."
"The deployment could be easier for beginners."
"It needs email notification, similar to what Logentries has. Because of the notification issue, we moved to Logentries, as it provides a simple way to receive notification whenever a server encounters an error or unexpected conditions (which we have defined using RegEx​)."
"The pricing of this product needs to be more clear because I cannot understand it when I review the website."
"The solution has quite a steep learning curve. The usability and general user-friendliness could be improved. However, that is kind of typical with products that have a lot of flexibility, or a lot of capabilities. Sometimes having more choices makes things more complex. It makes it difficult to configure it, though. It's kind of a bitter pill that you have to swallow in the beginning and you really have to get through it."
"We see the need for some improvements with Elasticsearch. We would like the Elasticsearch package to include training lessons for our staff."
"The different applications need to be individually deployed."
"I have not explored Elastic Search at the most. Searching from vector DB is available in Elastic Search, and there is one more concept of graph searching or graph database searching. I have not explored it, but if it is not there, that would be an improvement area where Elastic Search can improve."
"They should improve its documentation. Their official documentation is not very informative. They can also improve their technical support. They don't help you much with the customized stuff. They also need to add more visuals. Currently, they have line charts, bar charts, and things like that, and they can add more types of visuals. They should also improve the alerts. They are not very simple to use and are a bit complex. They could add more options to the alerting system."
"I have not been using the solution for many years to know exactly the improvements needed. However, they could simplify how the YML files have to be structured properly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For any developer starting out, it is worth it."
"I have heard that Algolia is an expensive solution."
"Algolia is a cool, super-easy-to-use, and affordable tool."
"The product is cheap."
"We are currently on a contract with Algolia for licensing and price."
"In terms of the cost of Algolia, the tool is really expensive for us in Brazil since it comes to about half a million dollars."
"We are using the free open-sourced version of this solution."
"We are using the Community Edition because Elasticsearch's licensing model is not flexible or suitable for us. They ask for an annual subscription. We also got the development consultancy from Elasticsearch for 60 days or something like that, but they were just trying to do the same trick. That's why we didn't purchase it. We are just using the Community Edition."
"The basic license is free, but it comes with a lot of features that aren't free. With a gold license, we get active directory integration. With a platinum license, we get alerting."
"Although the ELK Elasticsearch software is open-source, we buy the hardware."
"The tool is not expensive. Its licensing costs are yearly."
"The solution is affordable."
"We use the free version for some logs, but not extensive use."
"This product is open-source and can be used free of charge."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Performing Arts
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise42
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Algolia?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Algolia are based on a pay-as-you-go model, which is very efficient. The costs are very transparent and have detailed breakdowns for any kind of queries c...
What needs improvement with Algolia?
Algolia provides good value for money. However, personally, I feel the UI is a bit difficult to understand and could be more user-centric. The navigation part of Algolia is different from other too...
What is your primary use case for Algolia?
Algolia is used in my organization primarily for AI search to enhance product search for recommendations. It helps us support our knowledge bases, particularly Confluence, and maximizes the outcome...
What do you like most about ELK Elasticsearch?
Logsign provides us with the capability to execute multiple queries according to our requirements. The indexing is very high, making it effective for storing and retrieving logs. The real-time anal...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ELK Elasticsearch?
Elastic Search's pricing totally depends on the server. Managed services from AWS are used, and we have worked on a self-managed Elastic Search cluster. On the AWS side, it is very expensive becaus...
What needs improvement with ELK Elasticsearch?
To be honest, there is only one downside of Elastic Search that makes sense because we use a basic license, which is a free license. We do not have some features available because of the free licen...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Elastic Enterprise Search, Swiftype, Elastic Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Birchbox, Twitch, Lacoste, Stripe, WW, Medium, Cousera, National Geographic, Zendesk, Magento
T-Mobile, Adobe, Booking.com, BMW, Telegraph Media Group, Cisco, Karbon, Deezer, NORBr, Labelbox, Fingerprint, Relativity, NHS Hospital, Met Office, Proximus, Go1, Mentat, Bluestone Analytics, Humanz, Hutch, Auchan, Sitecore, Linklaters, Socren, Infotrack, Pfizer, Engadget, Airbus, Grab, Vimeo, Ticketmaster, Asana, Twilio, Blizzard, Comcast, RWE and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Algolia vs. Elastic Search and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.