Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

AWS AppSync 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

AWS AppSync
Ranking in Cloud Data Integration
23rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Elastic Search
Ranking in Cloud Data Integration
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Indexing and Search (1st), Search as a Service (1st), Vector Databases (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Data Integration category, the mindshare of AWS AppSync is 1.0%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Search is 1.6%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Data Integration Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Elastic Search1.6%
AWS AppSync1.0%
Other97.4%
Cloud Data Integration
 

Featured Reviews

Akil Saji - PeerSpot reviewer
AWS Cloud Developer at Mobil80 Solutions and Services Pvt. Ltd.
Ease of creating APIs with ongoing updates needed for automation
AWS has made it easy for developers like me to create and manage GraphQL APIs. The ease of use is a main advantage, allowing even beginners to start from scratch and learn through AppSync. Before AWS, developing and managing APIs was quite complex. AWS provided AppSync, which assists developers and startup founders. Startups blooming everywhere benefit from this service, welcoming those who lack prior knowledge. When working on AWS, I notice that Amazon regularly implements new features. For instance, with the Lambda service, AWS is transitioning from an old editor to a new one. Similarly, AppSync frequently introduces updates and changes. This trend is making the user interface more accessible, even for individuals without a technical background. Additionally, the cost is attractive, as AWS operates on a pay-as-you-go basis. These factors make AppSync both easy to use and cost-effective.
Vaibhav Shukla - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Agoda
Search performance has transformed large-scale intent discovery and hybrid query handling
While Elastic Search is a good product, I see areas for improvement, particularly regarding the misconception that any amount of data can simply be dumped into Elastic Search. When creating an index, careful consideration of data massaging is essential. Elastic Search stores mappings for various data types, which must remain below a certain threshold to maintain functionality. Users need to throttle the number of fields for searching to avoid overloading the system and ensure that the design of the document is efficient for the Elastic Search index. Additionally, I suggest utilizing ILM periodically throughout the year to manage data shuffling between clusters, preventing hotspots in the distribution of requests across nodes.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"AWS has made it easy for developers like me to create and manage GraphQL APIs."
"AWS has made it easy for developers like me to create and manage GraphQL APIs."
"Support for multiple data sources and formats is a fantastic feature."
"It gives us the possibility to store and query this data and also do this efficiently and securely and without delays."
"On the subject of pricing, Elastic Search is very cost-efficient, as you can host it on-premises, which would incur zero cost, or take it as a SaaS-based service, where the expenses remain minimal."
"The products comes with REST APIs."
"The tool's stability and performance are good."
"I am impressed with the product's Logstash. The tool is fast and customizable. You can build beautiful dashboards with it. It is useful and reliable."
"Elastic Search is the perfect tool for scalability."
"The initial setup is very easy for small environments."
"Data indexing of historical data is the most beneficial feature of the product."
 

Cons

"Moving to other clouds is impossible without significantly rearchitecting your applications."
"In AppSync, assigning roles and permissions to APIs is necessary for accessing other AWS services. Automating this task when creating APIs would be beneficial."
"In AppSync, assigning roles and permissions to APIs is necessary for accessing other AWS services. Automating this task when creating APIs would be beneficial."
"To do what we want to do with Elastic Search, the queries can get complex and require a fuller understanding of the DSL."
"The documentation for Elastic Search can be challenging if you're not already familiar with the platform."
"It would be useful to include an assistant into Kibana for recommendations, advice, tutorials, or things that can help improve my daily work with Elastic Search."
"Elastic Search needs to improve authentication. It also needs to work on the Kibana visualization dashboard."
"While integrating with tools like agents for ingesting data from sources like firewalls is valuable, I believe prioritizing improvements to the core product would be more beneficial."
"Better dashboards or a better configuration system would be very good."
"An improvement would be to have an interface that allows easier navigation and tracing of logs."
"It should be easier to use. It has been getting better because many functions are pre-defined, but it still needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis, and it is a pay-as-you-go model."
"Although the ELK Elasticsearch software is open-source, we buy the hardware."
"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."
"I rate Elastic Search's pricing an eight out of ten."
"ELK has been considered as an alternative to Splunk to reduce licensing costs."
"It can be expensive."
"The price could be better."
"We are using the free open-sourced version of this solution."
"We use the free version for some logs, but not extensive use."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Data Integration solutions are best for your needs.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise43
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS AppSync?
We initially had limited knowledge about AWS costs. As beginners, we ran many instances for over a month. Consequently, we received a bill from Amazon for around $20, which was unexpected. This hig...
What needs improvement with AWS AppSync?
In AppSync, assigning roles and permissions to APIs is necessary for accessing other AWS services. Automating this task when creating APIs would be beneficial. Regular updates might soon address th...
What is your primary use case for AWS AppSync?
Our company handles in-house projects and serves clients globally. My role with AppSync involves creating GraphQL APIs. There are different types of APIs, such as REST API, GraphQL API, and WebSock...
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

AppSync
Elastic Enterprise Search, Swiftype, Elastic Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACBL, Puresec, IDT, ASU, Public Good, cookpad, ALDO, ticketmaster
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 AWS AppSync vs. Elastic Search and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.