Best Elasticsearch Competitors

Elasticsearch is a great tool that businesses and companies can use to store, search, and analyze vast volumes of data in real time. It’s a fantastic tool essential if you want to succeed in today’s business environment. Even the biggest companies like Uber, Shopify, and Udemy use the Elasticsearch service in their tech stacks. To help you find out the best Elasticsearch competitors, we’ve gathered ten different alternatives that can help you implement a search engine for your site.

What is Elasticsearch?

Elasticsearch is a Lucene library-based search engine used by companies and businesses to store, search, and analyze vast volumes of data quickly and effectively. Think of it as a “Google,” but for companies. It’s a beneficial tool that gives back answers and data in milliseconds making for good real-time results. It’s open-source and is built on the Apache Lucene library.

What is Elasticsearch used for?

Elasticsearch fulfills different search-related purposes for companies. Its uses include application search, a website search, enterprise search, logs and logs analysis, infrastructure metrics and monitoring, security analysis, and business analytics. These are just a handful of things that Elasticsearch can be used for.

Some real-world examples include Netflix’s use of Elasticsearch to monitor and analyze its customer service operations and security logs. Walmart also uses Elasticsearch to monitor and gain insights about customer purchasing patterns, tracking store metrics, and holiday analytics. These are just a few examples of how businesses use Elasticsearch. The applications of the search engine are endless.

How does Elasticsearch work?

Elasticsearch works by storing and indexing specific sets of data to user-defined inputs. It can retrieve and manage structured data. It maps each unique (words) token to the list of (documents) locations containing that token. This makes it possible to locate documents and data sets using specific keywords quickly.

Overall, Elasticsearch is a bit more complex than simply using tokens and locations, but that’s one of the simplest ways to explain the instant search engine.

Why do companies need advanced search?

Companies need the advanced search to get accurate and precise data in real-time. These data are valuable to companies and can be used in researching their product, customers, income, sales, and listings, among many other things.

Integrating advanced search capabilities into your company can help you grow your business using advanced data metrics. It’s also a very scalable piece of technology, allowing it to grow as your company grows. It’s very versatile and can support multiple types of businesses, and it can also be paired with other essential business analytical tools.

When do you need to implement site search?

Implementing site search can help you better understand your business and your customers. It can help increase customer loyalty, improve sales, help you bring more customers, and help you grow your company.

You also end up with tons of valuable data that you can use to predict your customer’s purchasing patterns, what they are looking for, and what you can provide them with. Site search is an integral part of any successful website. Just take a look at services like Amazon and Youtube, two giants in the online community.

What is the price for implementing Elasticsearch or its competitors?

Usually, Elasticsearch costs cheaper than its competitors. This is because Elasticsearch is an open-source search engine. Open-source projects are generally more affordable because they are more accessible and cost less to maintain.

However, other full-text search services are free of charge or are dirt-cheap but come with maximum search limits or limited search functionality. You must take these trade-offs if you want a cheaper Elasticsearch service alternative. But these might be worth it, depending on your company’s specific search query needs.

What are the benefits of implementing an onsite search solution?

There are tons of different benefits that you can gain from implementing an excellent onsite search solution. One of these benefits includes having a better end-user experience. This allows users to find things quicker and transition to higher customer sales, customer retention, and a better customer experience.

Additionally, this can also increase your SEO and allow you to show up in a relevant search. An onsite search solution also gives your customer relevant search data that you can use to predict behavior, purchasing patterns, and possible trends.

What are the key search features to look for?

Here are some features you must look out for when trying to find an Elastic search alternative for your website.

Full-Text Search

Full-text search refers to the ability of the search engine to return results that contain some or all of the words from the query. A full-text search makes it easier for the end-users to find precisely what they are looking for in a database with thousands, if not millions, of entries. This is because the algorithm matches each word to the entries. The entry will still be shown as long as a part of the user’s query matches that result.

You can also pair it with other types of queries through faceted search (the filters/classifications of entries), relevant search (returning exciting search results to users), and instant search (which lets you create an instant search results experience). This helps increase the ability to find precisely what the user is looking for in real time.

Front-End Integration

Front-end integration is developing or incorporating a source project, in this case, a search engine, into usable websites, apps, and programs. This helps the front end (what the user sees and uses)communicate appropriately with the back end (the code that runs on the server).

This can be done in a variety of ways. Some use “middleware” to ensure the proper integration from the source to the end-user. In comparison, some bigger businesses make use of custom-made ones.

If you’re managing a smaller business, finding Elasticsearch service alternatives that include easy front-end integration might be the wisest. Some even have built-in apps that can directly help you integrate the search engine into your website. However, if you have a more significant scale business, choosing the custom route might be better because you’ll have more overall control over the application.

Personalization & Synonyms

Personalization & synonyms refer to the filters, user-defined rules, and other matching tokens that allow words with the same meaning to show similar, if not the same, results. An excellent example would be typing in “kg” vs. “kilogram.” These two mean the same thing, so the search engine should know that it needs to bring up the same results. These are similar to faceted search capabilities but are applied on the developer side.

These include abbreviations, exact synonyms, spelling variations (like adding dashes or spaces), language variations, local terms, and jargon vs. layman terms, among many other examples. Using synonyms and personalization filters can quickly help users to find what they’re looking for quickly and accurately.

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. Think of it as an ecosystem that allows you to connect and scale new systems with ease and quickly.

The Elasticsearch service offers a comprehensive ecosystem that supports integration with different security systems, observability systems, and enterprise search. Some examples are the Elastic cloud, Amazon web services, Google Cloud, and other functions and systems you would need in the workplace. Ensure that you find an excellent Elasticsearch alternative that supports time-series data visualization and proper integration for your required functions.

Best Elasticsearch Competitors

Luigi’s Box

First up, we have Luigi’s Box. Luigi’s Box offers tools for e‑commerce businesses that can help you increase sales and conversions by simply providing customers with the best shopping experience they could ask for.

The company is from Bratislava, Slovakia, hailed as the No 1 E‑commerce search software in Europe by G2 in the fall of 2021. It has also received other awards, such as the Best Analytics E‑commerce Germany award, and is a Search Industry Award Winner.

Luigi’s Box includes a search and autocomplete tool to help customers find what they are looking for, a recommender tool for personalization options, and an analytics tool to help you keep track of your data.

Features

Another great feature is that Luigi’s Box can easily be integrated without the help of your own IT team in four simple steps. They also support voice search, multiplatform analytics, and offline tests, among other features. You can try the service for free and don’t need to use a credit card to get started.

They also support CEE languages allowing you to reach a wider audience, especially in Europe. This is an excellent feature because not all search engines will have support for CEE languages, and they do a pretty good job supporting native languages.

Pricing

One of the great things about Luigi’s Box is that you can create a custom plan that suits your daily site’s needs. You can request a quote from them using their built-in plan calculator. Your price will depend on the number of products within your catalog, the average monthly views, and the services you want to avail yourself of.

Luigi’s Box can be a bit more expensive than Elasticsearch. Still, it’s already built and fully developed, unlike Elasticsearch, where you must dedicate time and money to do it yourself. Luigi’s Box is plug-and-play which justifies its cost over something more basic like Elasticsearch.

Customer Service

Luigi’s Box is trusted and used by over 1000 e‑shops. They provide excellent customer service, allowing you to request a demo of their services and try out a few of their products for free. You can also contact Luigi’s Box through email, calling via phone, or using their customer help form.

Pros

• All-in-one solution
• Easy to integrate
• Customizable pricing plans
• Tons of great premium features
• Customer Support reacts quickly to issues

Cons

• More expensive than Elasticsearch
• They only offer a free trial for the Analytics tool
• AI for synonyms and typos could be better

AddSearch

Next up, we have AddSearch. AdSearch is a lightning-fast and fully-featured site search platform. They are based in Helsinki, Finland, and provide a hosted site search service to over 1,800 customers.

You can request a demo or even try their service for free. They have full implementation support and a fast setup for any platform through their AddSearch crawler or API.

Features

AdSearch offers Google, Bing, and Facebook advertising, with Amazon advertising coming soon. They also have search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to increase site traffic and a web development and design tool to help you create a professional website.

Other features include a dedicated account manager, comprehensive monthly reports, and Google Analytics conversion tracking.

Pricing

AddSearch offers different plans that you can avail of, depending on your business needs. The Essentials plan costs $29 monthly and comes with 1,000 documents and 50,000 monthly searches. The Professional plan costs $99 monthly and comes with 10,000 documents and 100,000 monthly search queries. Finally, the Premium plan costs $499 monthly and comes with 25,000 documents and 500,000 monthly search queries.

Additionally, if these plans don’t fit your needs, you can also book a call to request an Enterprise level plan that comes with custom documents and search query numbers. But expect a hefty price tag at this level.

Customer Service

AddSearch offers excellent customer service. They promise to get in touch within one business day if you fill up their support form, but you can also message them using the AddSearch chatbot on their website. They also offer webinars and blogs that give helpful tips and insights regarding site searches.

Pros

• Simple and easy-to-use site search solution
• They offer many different plans
• Offers a 14-day free trial

Cons

• PDF contents cost more
• Big pricing leap between the professional plan and the premium plan
• Image handling can sometimes be hit or miss

QuarticOn

QuarticOn is another great Elasticsearch competitor. It’s a company based in Poland and was founded in 2011. It has an AI-intelligent search system that acts as your internal search engine, a recommendation engine to personalize results, and a marketing automation system that can help boost your sales.

You can easily integrate QuarticOn using a variety of plugins and channels. Some popular ones include Shopify, WooCommerce, and CreativeSites, among many others.

Features

Aside from the engines mentioned above and systems, QuarticOn also features full client support, all implementation processes on their side, and a solution that matches your e‑shop’s needs. They use AI and machine learning to help users find the right products.

Pricing

The basic plan for QuarticOn’s AI smart search engine starts at €110 per month. This includes an autocomplete, synonym support, support for a few languages, and primary filter and sorting functions. The professional plan starts at €220 per month and includes all the basic plan features with additional advanced features for filters, sorting, and other better functions.

QuarticOn’s other plans include CDXP and Marketing automation starting at €85 per month for the basic plan, €145 per month for the professional plan, and €265 per month for the enterprise plan. Their product recommendation engine starts at €350 per month for the basic plan and €700 per month for the professional plan.

Customer Service

QuarticOn offers excellent customer service. You can directly contact their VP of sales through the details found on their website. You can also schedule a meeting with the VP himself if ever you have any significant concerns that need raising quickly.

Pros

• Tons of embedded functions
• Easy to use and has a lot of filter options
• It can easily be customized and personalized

Cons

• Plans are expensive, especially for newer businesses
• Integrations for shop platforms can be improved
• Integration for some users isn’t a smooth process

Prefixbox

Prefixbox is a collection of eCommerce site search tools that can help you improve site search efficiency. It’s a flexible search engine powered by Artificial Intelligence to help increase conversions and sales.

They are partnered with companies like Microsoft, Emarsys, and ProdPort and are recognized in Gartner’s 2019 and 2020 Digital Commerce. They also offer four easy-to-integrate modules that you can use via the cloud, SaaS, and web-based deployment.

Features

Prefixbox offers a variety of tools, each with its features. Their search engine tool offers query management, optimization for mobile, natural language processing (NLP), faceted navigations and sorting, autocorrect, and is highly customizable.

Their other tools include autocomplete, related search, suggestion popularity, data refresh, and synonym management.

Pricing

Unfortunately, Prefixbox doesn’t provide any specific numbers regarding pricing. Furthermore, because they offer custom plans dependent on the number of searches and modules you need, they charge extra for each additional service you avail of. However, they offer some free trials if you want to try the service first.

Customer Service

They offer excellent customer service and listen to customer feedback and ideas. You can contact them via their customer support section to raise any concerns. You can also request demos and reach their sales teams regarding trials and pricing. You are also free to contact them via their different social media accounts.

Pros

• Available free trial offers
• Has cloud, SaaS, and web-based deployment
• Excellent optimization for mobile devices

Cons

• No standard pricing plans or rates

Doofinder

Doofinder is an eCommerce site solution that allows you to add a site search function to your website without writing a single line of code. It supports various eCommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, PrestaShop, WooCommerce, and Shopware, among many others, allowing you to integrate Doofinder into your online shop easily.

Features

Doofinder’s features include an intelligent search engine with NLP, suggestions, synonyms, AI search, mobile and voice search, autocomplete, searchandising, different search interfaces, and personalized recommendations.

Pricing

One of the best things about Doofinder is that you can try their product for free. They offer a 30-day trial period, but you can also continue using their product if you have fewer than 1,000 requests per month. Doofinder also provides some paid plans for more advanced sites with more needs.

The basic plan starts at €35 per month, allowing up to 10,000 monthly requests and some additional features. The pro plan starts at €59 per month with the exact 10,000 monthly requests but offers more advanced features than the basic plan. Finally, the enterprise plan costs €719 per month with up to 600,000 monthly requests.

Customer Service

Doofinder offers good customer service with some available FAQS to help you out when first getting started. They also have a ton of different “how-to’s” that can help you integrate Doofinder into your site or fix some minor issues.

Pros

• Offers a 30-day free trial and a free plan perfect for new sites
• It has an extensive support guide filled with tons of helpful information
• It shows results very fast

Cons

• The plans can get expensive quick
• Not too many customization options
• It might need a lot of configuration, depending on your site

SearchNode

SearchNode is a site search solution optimized for medium-big eCommerce companies looking to optimize their site’s search engine. They feature a fully automated AI search engine that removes all the manual tasks and gives you more time to do other things.

It’s a fast-growing tech company based in Lithuania. They provide a comprehensive search engine and combine powerful search technology with solution developers, advanced algorithms, and AI.

Features

SearchNode’s features include relevant matching, custom stemming with support for different languages, synonyms, advanced analytics, automated search assistant, extra filters, and AI‑powered clever merchandising.

Pricing

SearchNode doesn’t have any fixed plans and doesn’t have any prices displayed on its website. However, you can request a demo or get a free Site Search Audit and analysis to see how effective your current Site Search is.

Customer Service

You can contact SearchNode through their email address found on their contact page. You can also call their local business numbers from Lithuania and the US offices.

Pros

• It has a simple API that can easily be used on your site
• Synonyms can easily be added to help improve search results
• UI is easy to understand and customize

Cons

• Incomplete statistics on the developer side
• No standard pricing per month
• Feedback regarding improvements or actions can sometimes be slow

FACT-Finder

FACT-Finder delivers an intelligent onsite search solution that uses search navigation, merchandising, and analytics to help increase your shop’s sales. It’s trusted and used by over 1,800 online shops worldwide and was named the best site search solution in 2021.

Features

FACT-Finder features a self-learning site search that supports multiple languages and an intelligent suggest feature that includes autocomplete and personalization. It uses AI-based analytics to help you quickly adjust the data and align search results with your business objectives.

Pricing

Unlike most site search solutions, FACT-Finder doesn’t offer fixed plans that you can use. Instead, they use a dynamic plan that will be adjusted according to your specific needs. This means that your monthly rates will be based on what you consume and your products.

Customer Service

FACT-Finder has a beneficial customer portal with a dedicated Service Desk team that’s operational from Monday to Friday, 8 am to 6 pm, to help you with your concerns. But you can also contact them by phone or email.

Pros

• Pricing is based on your monthly business needs
• It has an intuitive and flexible UI
• The search function is very error-tolerant and has an easy-to-use filtering system

Cons

• The Customer Service Desk is only available during regular working hours
• Your plan might change monthly because there isn’t a fixed subscription model
• There are quite a lot of different modules that you need to purchase if you want to get better results

Yext

Coming up next, we have Yext. Yext is a cloud-based site search solution that allows you to help your customers find the right thing through various brand management tools. They are trusted by thousands of popular companies worldwide. This includes companies like Samsung, Subway, Lego, Verizon, and Campbell’s, among many others. They are also a consistent G2 award receiver over the past few years.

Features

Some of Yext’s features include AI search, natural language processing (NLP) support, excellent listing management, local search optimization, monitoring of social networks, real-time updates, and faceted management, among many others.

Pricing

Yext offers bulk packages that are billed on an annual basis. Their Emerging Starter Package costs $4 per week and is billed $199 per year. The Essential Plus Package costs $9 per week and billed $449 per year. 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

You can reach Yext via their contact sales page found on their website. You can also call their local New York number or contact them via social media accounts. They also offer different publications, blogs, customer stories, webinars, events, and guides to help you fix any minor issues.

Pros

• Easy to use and integrate
• Reasonable levels of control and customization for each tool
• You can manage all listings directly from one location

Cons

• Some of the features can be vaguely explained and have to be explored to be understood
• It doesn’t have a drag-and-drop content management system
• You have to work with Yext to build up SEO constantly

Algolia

Next up, we have a popular Elasticsearch competitor in Algolia. Algolia is an API perfect for developers looking to deliver instant and accurate search results on mobile and PC. Algolia uses AI to help your customers quickly and easily find the products or content they are looking for quickly and easily.

Features

Algolia supports a variety of search queries, including faceted search, synonyms, natural language, typo tolerance, and highlighting functions. Algolia also has a great admin dashboard, personalization, search analytics, great integrations, autocomplete, product information available, and others.

Pricing

Algolia is one of the more affordable site search solutions on this list. Their Standard Algolia Search Plan costs $1 per 1000 requests per month. The upgraded version called Algolia Search Premium costs $1.50 per 1000 requests per month. Finally, they also offer the Algolia Recommend Plan, which costs $0.60 per 1000 recommended monthly requests. You can also avail of different add-ons that each have a respective cost.

Customer Service

Like most other services on this list, you can contact Algolia customer service by filling out their customer request form on their website. They also have blogs, libraries, events, and a quick start guide that people are free to use.

Pros

• Trusted site search solution
• Offers affordable plans that are cheaper compared to other alternatives
• Provides quick and easy integration methods that are compatible with popular eCommerce platforms

Cons

• The pricing model is based on traffic, making it hard to give monthly cost estimates
• The UI can get confusing at times, and the documentation for the front-end side of things can be a little confusing
• Not many customization options

Recombee

Recombee uses advanced machine learning systems and AI algorithms to reach a new level of site search personalization using search recommendations tailored by data scientists. They offer a recommender system that’s easy to use and highly versatile and scalable solutions.

Features

Recombee offers real-time recommendation services using API/SDK. They are a scalable solution capable of delivering over 10,000 recommendations per second. They also have a good UI with performance indicators and domain independence. Their engine is easy to customize, offers various filters and support for multiple languages, and easy integration for different coding languages.

Pricing

They have a variety of subscription offers that you can avail of. Their Standard plan starts at $99 per month with over 100,000 recommendation requests and 20,000 – 40,000 active users and items in the catalog. The Plus plan starts at $899 per month with over 2,000,000 recommendation requests and 400,000 – 1,000,000 active users and items in the catalog. Finally, the Pro plan starts at $1,499 per month with over 5,000,000 recommendation requests and 1,000,000 – 2,000,000 active users and items in the catalog.

These plans raise in price depending on your business’s monthly recommendation requests, active users, and items within the catalog. You can also try their free plan, that only supports up to 100,000 recommendation requests per month, 20,000 active users, and 20,000 items in the catalog.

Customer Service

Recombee offers good customer service as long as you are subscribed to one of their paid plans. You don’t have any support service when only using the free plan, so you’re on your own. However, they do have a FAQ page, blogs, and other documentation that you are free to use.

You can contact them via any of their social network accounts, by calling their local business number, or by emailing them using the details found on their website.

Pros

• They offer an excellent free plan that you can use when first starting your website
• Many integration options with support for multiple coding languages
• Their plans are straightforward to optimize according to your actual needs

Cons

• Their plans get pricey real quick
• Targeted towards more prominent companies with tons of monthly traffic
• You need to have some technical knowledge to use their product effectively

Conclusion

That’s the end of our list. Having a robust site search solution will help your business succeed. Nobody wants to spend hours finding the single product they are looking for. An excellent site search tool will allow users to quickly and efficiently find their product while also allowing them to check out other similar products.

You must use a site search solution that fits your needs at the end of the day. Some are better for big companies, and some are better for smaller ones. Some offer a single service, while others provide a set of tools that can help your business grow. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Who are Elasticsearch competitors?

There are tons of Elasticsearch competitors out there. Today, we’ve listed 10: Luigi’s Box, AddSearch, QuarticOn, Prefixbox, Doofinder, SearchNode, FACT-finder, Yext, Algolia, and Recombee.

What is the best use of Elasticsearch?

Elasticsearch is best used to organize, store, and analyze vast volumes of data, such as products and merchandise, among other things. It’s best used as a tool to enhance your onsite search solution and improve your customer’s site experience.

Why do companies use Elasticsearch?

Elasticsearch, or any other site search solution, makes it easier for users to find the product they are looking for in a catalog filled with thousands, if not millions, of other entries. If you don’t have a great site search solution integrated into your website, your customers will have trouble finding specific products. It’s as if you were trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Did Elastic 8 bring any improvements?

Yes, Elastic 8.0 can solve some NLP tasks, detect anomalies and outliers, and supports classification and regression, but it’s not a magic bullet. When you just turn it on, it will work. However, it’s not something that a non-specialist can effectively use, so there is a need for IT specialists.