Best Algolia Competitors

If you’re looking for an Algolia competitor or an excellent search service substitute, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll be comparing ten different search providers on the market that rival Algolia.

We’ll explain how the search engine works, its use, and why your company needs one. We’ll also talk about the key features you have to look for in a search provider, the pricing, customer service, and the pros and cons of each competitor. Here are the top 10 Algolia alternatives to improve your user’s search experience.

What is Algolia used for?

Algolia is an AI-powered search and discovery service that creates a custom and digital experience to help businesses handle search queries and move one step closer to their business goals.

It allows businesses to provide a good customer experience to their users by helping them efficiently and quickly find the products that they need. Algolia uses advanced AI to provide instant search to businesses and return relevant products to inquiries made by customers.

Some of Algolia’s other features also include faceted search (filters), search analytics, personalization and synonyms, suggestions, and customizable user interface, among many others.

How does Algolia work?

Algolia makes use of its different servers around the world to provide a hosted search engine that is capable of delivering real-time results. Their search engine powers billions of queries monthly for thousands of e-commerce retailers while still showing sub-100 ms results anywhere.

Of course, you’ll have to supply the Algolia servers with the product catalog and other relevant information to return these results to your customers. You can do this through their dashboard or using their API clients. Either way, you’re good to go once the data is stored on their servers.

In a nutshell, you provide the product information to the Algolia servers. Once there, users can use the search box to type in what they are looking for, and then the Algolia AI will do its work and match those data to return results quickly.

Why do companies need advanced search?

Companies need advanced search because it dramatically improves user experience, leading to higher conversion rates and better customer reviews. Advanced search helps customers quickly find the products they are looking for by using facet filters, suggesting relevant search terms, and increasing discovery functionality, among other essential features.

Advanced search can also significantly help with searchandising. The term searchandising refers to curating results that drive sales, conversions, and KPIs for online stores. It combines the words “search” and “merchandising,” resulting in the slang term searchandising.

Advanced search is an essential part of all successful online retailers. Without it, your customers will struggle to find the right products when navigating your website. This can result in a lower customer satisfaction rate and lower sales overall.

When do you need to implement site search?

It can be hard to determine when exactly you need to implement a site search solution. Most e-commerce retailers should implement a site search solution as early as possible. It can help boost sales and induce growth, which all businesses want.

However, it can be challenging for smaller businesses to implement a good site search solution because of the fees they can’t afford yet. Luckily, there are some free alternatives that you can use, depending on your monthly search needs. Search experts suggest providing a custom experience using a search solution as soon as you start seeing constant growth. Then, implementing a good search solution can help boost that growth further because of its curated experience.

What is the price for implementing Algolia or its competitors?

There are different prices when it comes to implementing Algolia or its competitors. There are free ones, there are cheap plans, and there are costly plans. From a business perspective, it can be tough to decide. You just have to base it on your site’s needs and which provider has the best features that help you get a boost in conversion rates and revenue uplift.

Algolia’s standard pricing starts at $1 per 1,000 search requests per month. Their Premium plan starts at $1.50 per 1,000 search requests per month. They also offer their Algolia Recommend service starting at $0.60 per 1,000 recommended monthly requests.

As for Algolia’s competitors’ pricing, we will discuss those below, along with their features, customer service, and pros and cons. So, make sure to check each Algolia alternative down below.

What are the benefits of implementing an onsite search solution?

Implementing a full-text search site solution allows you to give your users a great, unique, and curated experience that will enable them to find the products they want quickly. This can help customers better understand your products and your other content.

You also earn valuable data that you can use in search analytics to help you optimize your search results and discover popular searches. You can refine your search merchandising and better understand your users through search analysis.

Additionally, an onsite search solution can help shorten the customer journey from the search bar to the exact product. It can also help you push products during holiday sales and seasonal events or promote other items on sale.

What are the key search features to look for?

Next, discuss the key features you should look for in an excellent onsite search solution. We’ll discuss each feature and what they do or bring to the table. Check if the provider you’re looking at has these features.

Full-text search

Full-text search is the capability of the search solution to match and return listings according to your entered words. It’s the primary purpose of a search engine. It’s the ability to return matches within a data set, even if the entered words don’t exactly match the total result.

Full-text search is the most common search engine technique out there. It’s a comprehensive method that compares every word typed in the search bar and looks for it within the database. Each page gets searched and indexed, and if any matches are found, they are returned as results.

The full-text search technique can also go hand-in-hand with other types of search functions like faceted search (the filters/classifications of entries), relevant search (returns engaging search results to users), and instant search (allows you to create instant search results experience). These searches can significantly increase search speed and can result in higher product views and customer reviews.

Front-end integration

Another critical feature to look out for is front-end integration. Front-end integration is developing or incorporating a project into usable buttons and elements on a website, app, or program. The term “front-end” refers to the user interface and the things you see and interact with on a website or app. This includes buttons, the search bar, tabs, switches, toggles, and bars, among other elements.

Now, you can probably start to see why front-end integration is essential. There won’t be any clickable or usable elements on your screen without proper front-end integration, or they won’t work.

Smaller businesses might want to look for providers that feature easy front-end integration. Some search solutions offer seamless and easy integration without the need for your IT team. This is done through the help of search experts. This can help save you a lot of valuable time and money.

For larger companies and businesses, it might be better for you to look for a more customizable front-end integration solution. Depending on your business perspective, goals, and strategy, you might want to match some aspects for a better look and provide a more customized experience.

Personalization & synonyms

Personalization in search refers to the search experience catered specifically to the individual. Searching for the right things can be challenging enough. However, a more personalized search can shorten the customer journey by producing more relevant search results.

Synonyms refer to different words that have or share the same meaning. It matches other words with their synonyms to help expand your users’ queries using the variations of the searches. For example, if you are an online clothing retailer and a user searches for “jackets,” the results should return with winter jackets, hoodies, or a light spring jacket. This is because winter jackets and lightweight spring jackets, and others are different types of jackets.

Synonyms can also refer to different spelling variations, abbreviations, jargon, and slang. Usually, providers use AI to manage synonyms and personalization strategies. But, you can also add some on your own, depending on your search analysis.

A popular strategy for different search engines is combining personalization and synonyms to create a more relevant search experience. You can also manually add custom synonyms and other personalization options based on popular searches, holiday sales or events, and language-based synonyms.

Other integrations

Finally, we have other integrations. These refer to the collection of assets and data and how they connect with logs, metrics, apps, infrastructure, cloud services, networks, and other workplace tools. It acts like an ecosystem that helps you easily connect and scale new systems with ease.

This is important when you implement various tools or elements on your website. It’s essential to discover how you can integrate new tools, such as a search solution, without clashing with pre-existing software and digital property. This can include elements within blog posts, and services like Amazon Elasticsearch service, among other things. Some providers allow for more specific integration features than others.

Most notable Algolia competitors

Let’s delve into the realm of innovative software solutions, analyzing their features, performance, and industry applications. We’ll explore their pros and cons to identify which is the best fit for your online business.

Luigi’s Box

First up, we have Luigi’s Box. Luigi’s Box is a product search and recommendation service for e-commerce sites. It’s powered by AI and is considered one of the best e-commerce search software in Europe.

Luigi’s Box helps you set a new standard for your business site that can help increase e-shop conversion rates and provide an enhanced customer experience. Exceed customer expectations and improve the customer satisfaction rate with Luigi’s Box.

Features

Luigi’s Box boasts a variety of features. This includes a full-text and personalized search experience that enhances discovery functionality. They also feature an easy front-end integration system that only has four steps and doesn’t require the help of your IT team. Luigi’s Box also has advanced language support, and they offer CEE languages (Central and Eastern European). Not to mention, they do a better job at it than most.

They offer three main products, Search, Recommender, and Analytics. Search includes autocompleting, dynamic filtering, intelligent search results management, and typo correction. Recommender offers personalized options and recommendations to take advantage of the benefits of searchandising. Finally, Analytics provides you with comprehensive data and helps identifies issues with queries and optimization. These features can quickly help you make a more robust digital commerce strategy.

Pricing

Luigi’s Box has no specific pricing details posted on its website. However, you can get a free quotation based on the services you want to avail of and the monthly page views and searches. You’re also free to create an account and get started with Luigi’s Box without needing a credit card.

Customer service

Luigi’s Box provides customer service through its support page. All you have to do is fill in the necessary information and submit it. You can also contact them via their email address support@luigisbox.com for support or info@luigisbox.com for general inquiries.

AdSearch

AdSearch is an all-in-one digital marketing and search engine optimization solution that tailors strategies according to your needs. They are partnered with online behemoths like Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. That’s how you know you’re in good hands.

Features

They offer features like Google and Bing ads, Facebook marketing, site search engine optimization, web development, and design, with Amazon advertising coming soon. AdSearch can help you increase product views by making your name more publicly known.

Pricing

Unfortunately, AdSearch doesn’t post specific plans or prices on its website. You’ll have to schedule a call with them to get a free consultation and quotation session. From there, they’ll base the pricing on your needs.

Customer service

They have good customer service backed up with various blogs and other documentation to help you throughout the process of improving your digital commerce strategy. Feel free to contact their support service online.

AddSearch

AddSearch is an AI-powered site search solution that provides lightning-fast, effortless, and customizable search features for any website or application. You can improve your customers’ search experience and help them find what they need.

AddSearch features an innovative and customizable search that you can integrate using their Crawler or Indexing API for a fast and smooth implementation. They serve over 1,800 businesses worldwide and help them improve their online search retail strategy.

Features

AddSearch features a full-text search function with matching faceted search and filtering options. They also have fast integration through their AddSearch Crawler, or you can also use their API. This makes it easy to implement AddSearch on any platform and with any third-party integration additions.

They also provide essential data and reports through their activity dashboard, behavior tracking, historical reporting, text analytics, and visual analytics. These data can help you create a solid digital strategy that you can use to enhance users’ discovery experiences.

Pricing

When it comes to pricing, AddSearch offers four different plans. Their cheapest one is the Essentials plan, which costs $29 per month with up to 1,000 pages and 50,000 search queries per month. The Professional plan costs $99 per month and can handle up to 10,000 documents with a search request limit of 100,000 per month. The Premium plan has a hefty price jump at $499 with a custom UI and premium analytics. It is an overall more advanced search solution.

Finally, their most robust plan is the Enterprise plan, fully tailored to your business needs. In the context of e-commerce, the Essentials and Professionals plan should be more than enough for smaller to medium-sized companies.

Customer service

They offer quick and fantastic customer service and are highly regarded by their customers. You can contact support via their support form, where they promise to get in touch within one business day. You can also drop a message via email using support@addsearch.com. However, you get priority customer service when you avail of their plans.

Coveo

Coveo is a SaaS company that features an AI-powered search engine that can help create unique discovery experiences for users. It’s based in Quebec, Canada, but they also have an office in San Francisco. They offer solutions for e-commerce, customer service, digital workforce, and website search via the cloud.

Features

Coveo’s best features include full-text search support, faceted search, typo tolerance, multi-language support, federated search, and easy integrations. They also have intelligent search, recommendations, and content personalization to create better discovery experiences.

Pricing

Coveo’s prices start at $600 per month for the Base plan. It includes up to 100 K search queries per month. The next upgrade is the Pro plan, enabling multi-site searches and multi-source digital experiences. It starts at $1,320 per month, and you’ll have to contact them to get the plan directly. Finally, the Enterprise plan offers volume-based pricing and is suited for huge companies that handle millions of monthly requests and queries.

Customer service

Like most on the list, you can contact Coveo using the support form found on their website. They also offer various blogs, guides, videos, success stories, and case studies to help you with simple issues. Their previous blog also covers quick tips and deep dives that can be helpful to you.

Doofinder

Doofinder is a site search service that boasts adding a good search solution to your e-commerce site in as quick as 5 minutes without writing a single line of code. They offer a smite search engine powered by artificial intelligence to help you increase conversion rates by improving the overall discovery experience.

Features

Doofinder has features like autocomplete, personalized search, searchandising, intelligent search, faceted navigation, and multi-index search. They’ve also added different search methods, including visual, voice, mobile, and geolocated search, which can significantly help your digital commerce strategy.

Pricing

Doofinder has a Free plan that you can try that supports up to 1,000 requests per month. The Basic plan starts at €35 per month and up to 10,000 requests per month. Their most popular plan is called the Pro plan and costs €59 with up to 10,000 requests per month and some more premium features. Their Enterprise plan is their most expensive, which costs €719 per month and supports up to 600,000 requests per month.

You can also avail a 30-day free trial for their Basic and Pro plans if you want to get a good idea of what you are getting.

Customer service

They provide complete customer service with tons of documents, blogs, articles, and FAQs that can help you better grasp their service. You can also contact them via their phone number or their email address.

SearchNode

Next up, we have SearchNode. SearchNode is the ultimate search solution for medium and big e-commerce companies. They offer a combination of powerful search engine technology with highly skilled solution developers to help optimize your site and produce a revenue uplift.

Features

SearchNode features an AI-powered search with federated, faceted, and full-text search features. It also has excellent typo tolerance, highlighting, synonyms, natural language support, and personalization. These can help create an engaging journey for your customers and help improve poor conversion rates.

They also have an AI-powered innovative merchandising system that can help you gain some benefits of searchandising your content and increase your search conversion rates.

Pricing

Unfortunately, SearchNode doesn’t have any fixed plans or other prices posted on their website. But, you can request a demo or get a free site search audit and analysis done to see the possible business benefit you can get from using SearchNode.

Customer service

SearchNode offers an email address and phone number for both their Lithuania and US offices for you to call in case of any concerns. They also provide content such as blogs, ebooks, e-commerce success stories, and other relevant content available on their website to help you on your searchandising journey.

FACT-Finder

FACT-Finder is an AI-driven site search solution that uses industry-leading e-commerce technology to help you increase your search conversion rates. They are trusted by over 1,800 e-commerce shops and are a significant player as a site solution in Europe.

Features

FACT-Finder has various features ranging from search, suggestions, analytics, applications of searchandising, and personalization. They also offer consultation and other practical solutions that can help improve your business intelligence.

Pricing

They don’t display prices on their website or have no standardized plans. However, FACT-Finder offers dynamic pricing based on your company’s needs and monthly search activities.

Customer service

You can contact FACT-Finder support using their page. They also provide demos and have a customer portal that you can access once you are subscribed to their service. FACT-Finder also has a vast library filled with digital property and other pieces of content filled with years of extensible search experience.

Yext

Yext is an AI search platform that offers limitless search solutions. They promise to deliver the correct information to create an engaging journey for the customers. Yext provides many practical solutions to help you go from a poor search provider to one of the best.

Yext takes the searchandising journey to the next level with their AI search. They provide direct answers instead of hyperlinks through the help of multiple algorithms. They are a significant player in the intelligent search industry and have been a leader in over five G2 categories for numerous years.

Features

The company’s main feature is the Yext AI Search. Within e-commerce, there’s a distinction between search and Yext AI Search. Yext AI Search delivers direct answers to customers according to the search criteria. This can quickly help increase revenue from search users and improve poor search practices.

Pricing

Yext offers a variety of plans that you can avail of. They only offer bulk packages that are billed annually and upfront. This can save you more money in the long run within the larger context.

Their Emerging Starter Package costs $4 per week and is billed $199 per year. The Essential Plus Package costs $9 per week and is billed $449 annually. The Complete Standard Package costs $10 per week and is billed at $499 per year. Finally, they offer a Premium Advanced Package that costs $19 per week and is billed $999 annually. However, these prices can still change, especially if you want to avail yourself of Yext’s other services.

Customer service

They have offices in San Francisco and the UK with email addresses and local numbers that you can contact. Yext also has various content from blogs, customer stories, webinars, and events that you can use to add to your business intelligence.

Searchspring

Searchspring is the #1 e-commerce search and merchandising platform built exclusively for retailers. Grow your online store by creating relevant search experiences and start to earn more revenue from search users.

The company received many awards from G2 in the Spring of 2022 and offers a tremendous searchandising solution to improve poor conversion rates on your site.

Features

Searchspring offers merchandising, indexing, stemming, conversion, ranking, personalization, faceted search, and e-commerce platform integrations. They also provide reports, analytics, and relevant customer data for your business intelligence. Searchspring can lift conversion rates for your sites by delivering relevant, intelligently-ranked content and products.

Pricing

They offer three main plans. Searchspring’s Essential plan starts at $499 with search, autocomplete, navigation, and merchandising options for one domain. The Advanced plan starts at $679per month, and it comes with more advanced features and supports up to 3 domains. Their Expert plan starts at $849 per month, offers the best options, doesn’t have a rate limit, and can handle up to 5 different domains.

Searchspring’s pricing plans can be expensive, especially for e-commerce practitioners just starting out. However, existing product owners claim that the price is worth it, so it will all depend on your business goals.

Customer service

Once you avail of any of their plans, you’ll automatically get access to their knowledge base and email support. You also get a dedicated strategic account manager for the more expensive plans to help you get the best business benefit out of Searchspring.

Hawksearch

Hawksearch is a personalized search and recommendation driven by AI that can help power any business across all industries. It has an advanced feature set that goes above and beyond, which can result in a lift in conversion rates.

Features

Hawksearch has available search, navigation, recommendations, autocomplete, SEO traffic builder, and data tools. They offer various essential business services so that they can provide you with an excellent and complete search solution within the larger context.

They also offer a variety of solutions, from marketing, e-commerce, engineering, mobile, and web, making them excellent tools for e-commerce practitioners worldwide.

Pricing

They offer three main business plans. The Small Business plan is perfect for single sites and starts at $376 per month. The next plan is called the Professional plan and is best for more significant sites with mixed products and content. It starts at $750 monthly and has advanced features and no rate limit. Finally, they have an Enterprise plan perfect for omnichannel search and comes with recommendations and data enrichment. It has a distinction between search and other business activities.

Customer service

Hawksearch automatically gives you access to technical support once you subscribe to one of their plans. But, you can also contact them via their support page or through their social media channels. They also offer an extensive knowledge base relevant to customers because it contains blogs and other content that can help answer some of your questions and concerns.

Conclusion

Those were some of the best Algolia competitors and alternatives in the market today. With the current trend of an ever-growing internet community, a surge in solutions is sure to happen. It’s best to stick with trusted experts and veterans within the site search industry.

Sometimes, all your business needs is a great site search solution to help boost sales. Just take a look at online clothing retailer Harry Rosen. They were able to increase their product discovery metrics by four times. All it takes is a good site search solution that provides an extensible search experience.

Frequently asked questions