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Algolia vs Solr 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
Solr
Ranking in Search as a Service
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Search as a Service category, the mindshare of Algolia is 9.2%, up from 8.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Solr is 4.6%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Search as a Service Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Algolia9.2%
Solr4.6%
Other86.2%
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.
reviewer823641 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Search Engineer at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
The Natural Language Search capability is helpful and intuitive for our users
The initial setup is complex because this is a distributed system, and you have to make sure that every individual node is aware of every other node in existence. This search engine has a large capacity, so you need to make sure that there is enough buffer space. We took one month to deploy and perform a fresh setup. Our strategy was to start with a local data center, before venturing into cross data center replicas. A staff size of two to four people is suitable for deploying and maintaining the solution, depending upon the scale. They would set up the solution and put monitoring in place for the indexing jobs, as well as design the schema so that the data can feed well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool is worth the money, and I have seen an ROI."
"Since Algolia is a SaaS solution, we didn't have to maintain servers, look at the indexes, and monitor services."
"Algolia provides some cool functionalities like filtering, indexing, and searching."
"The Algolia solution really helped us to improve our conversion rate and click through rate."
"We were working with search products, brands, and different attributes specific to the product; it's faster and easier. The implementation is easy."
"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."
"It's scalable. It can be scaled massively."
"​Sharding data, Faceting, Hit Highlighting, parent-child Block Join and Grouping, and multi-mode platform are all valuable features."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to perform a natural language search."
"One of the best aspects of the solution is the indexing. It's already indexed to all the fields in the category. We don't need to spend so much extra effort to do the indexing. It's great."
"It has improved our search ranking, relevancy, search performance, and user retention."
 

Cons

"I think they could improve the analytics view."
"The documentation is not beginner-friendly."
"The documentation for the service is not as good as it could be."
"The high cost of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The deployment could be easier for beginners."
"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."
"When indexing the products, one may face some issues with the tool."
"Algolia is not adopted that much, and it would be great if it were made more popular."
"With increased sharding, performance degrades. Merger, when present, is a bottle-neck. Peer-to-peer sync has issues in SolrCloud when index is incrementally updated."
"The performance for this solution, in terms of queries, could be improved."
"It does take a little bit of effort to use and understand the solution. It would help us a lot if the solution offered up more documentation or tutorials to help with training or troubleshooting."
"Encountered issues with both master-slave and SolrCloud. Indexing and serving traffic from same collection has very poor performance. Some components are slow for searching."
"SolrCloud stability, indexing and commit speed, and real-time Indexing need improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is cheap."
"I have heard that Algolia is an expensive solution."
"Algolia is a cool, super-easy-to-use, and affordable tool."
"For any developer starting out, it is worth it."
"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 currently on a contract with Algolia for licensing and price."
"The only costs in addition to the standard licensing fees are related to the hardware, depending on whether it is cloud-based, or on-premise."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Performing Arts
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
No data available
 

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...
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Birchbox, Twitch, Lacoste, Stripe, WW, Medium, Cousera, National Geographic, Zendesk, Magento
eHarmony, Sears, StubHub, Best Buy, Instagram, Netflix, Disney, AT&T, eBay, AOL, Bloomberg, Comcast, Ticketmaster, Travelocity, MTV Networks
Find out what your peers are saying about Algolia vs. Solr and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.