Algolia
Hosted search-as-a-service platform delivering real-time, full-text search for apps and websites
Meilisearch
Lightning-fast search engine with hybrid AI-powered search capabilities
Meilisearch delivers sub-50ms search results with typo tolerance, faceted filtering, and hybrid search combining semantic and full-text capabilities. RESTful API integrates seamlessly into any stack.
Overview
Fast, Flexible Search for Modern Applications
Meilisearch is a powerful search engine built in Rust that delivers results in under 50 milliseconds, making it ideal for search-as-you-type experiences. It combines full-text and semantic search capabilities through hybrid search, ensuring users find the most relevant results whether they're searching through millions of songs, ecommerce catalogs, or SaaS application data.
Built for Developers, Designed for Users
The engine works out of the box with intelligent defaults including typo tolerance, synonym support, and extensive language optimization for Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, and Latin-based languages. Developers gain fine-grained control through faceted search, custom filtering, sorting, geosearch, and multi-tenancy support. Security is handled through API keys with granular permissions, while RESTful APIs and comprehensive SDKs enable integration with any technology stack.
Flexible Deployment Options
Available in two editions: the Community Edition (MIT licensed) provides the full core search engine for any use case, while the Enterprise Edition adds advanced features like sharding for large-scale deployments. Self-host on your infrastructure or leverage Meilisearch Cloud for managed hosting with built-in analytics and monitoring across global regions.
Highlights
Hybrid search combining semantic and full-text search with sub-50ms response times
Typo-tolerant search with faceted filtering, sorting, and geosearch capabilities
Multi-tenancy and API key security for fine-grained access control
RESTful API with extensive SDK support and AI framework integration (LangChain, MCP)
Pros
- Exceptionally fast search performance under 50 milliseconds
- Works out of the box with intelligent defaults requiring minimal configuration
- MIT-licensed Community Edition suitable for commercial use
- Comprehensive language support with optimizations for non-Latin scripts
Considerations
- Enterprise features like sharding require commercial licensing
- Crates not available on crates.io, limiting Rust ecosystem integration
- Collects anonymized telemetry by default (can be disabled)
- Production use of Enterprise Edition requires commercial agreement
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Fit guide
Great for
- Applications requiring instant search-as-you-type experiences
- Ecommerce platforms needing faceted search and filtering
- Multi-tenant SaaS applications with personalized search requirements
- Projects combining semantic and keyword search for better relevance
Not ideal when
- Organizations requiring on-premises Enterprise features without licensing budget
- Projects needing complex analytical queries beyond search use cases
- Teams seeking crates.io-published Rust dependencies
- Use cases requiring strict zero-telemetry guarantees without configuration
How teams use it
Ecommerce Product Discovery
Customers find products instantly using faceted filters, price ranges, ratings, and typo-tolerant search across large catalogs
Media Streaming Platform Search
Users discover content across 47+ million items using hybrid search that understands intent and handles misspellings
Multi-Tenant CRM Application
Sales teams search contacts, deals, and companies with tenant-isolated results and role-based access control
AI-Powered Documentation Search
Developers integrate semantic search into knowledge bases using LangChain, delivering contextually relevant results
Tech snapshot
Rust100%
Shell1%
Dockerfile1%
RenderScript1%
Frequently asked questions
What is hybrid search in Meilisearch?
Hybrid search combines semantic search (understanding meaning and context) with traditional full-text search (keyword matching) to deliver the most relevant results. This approach captures both exact matches and conceptually similar content.
What's the difference between Community and Enterprise editions?
Community Edition (MIT license) includes the full core search engine for any use including commercial production. Enterprise Edition adds advanced features like sharding and requires a commercial license for production use.
How fast is Meilisearch in practice?
Meilisearch delivers search results in under 50 milliseconds, enabling true search-as-you-type experiences where results appear instantly as users type their queries.
Can I use Meilisearch with my existing tech stack?
Yes. Meilisearch provides a RESTful API and offers official SDKs for major languages and frameworks. It also integrates with AI tools like LangChain and supports the Model Context Protocol.
Does Meilisearch support languages other than English?
Yes. Meilisearch supports search in any language with optimized handling for Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, and all languages using the Latin alphabet, including proper tokenization and language-specific features.
Project at a glance
Active- Stars
- 55,477
- Watchers
- 55,477
- Forks
- 2,340
Repo age7 years old
Last commityesterday
Self-hostingSupported
Primary languageRust
Last synced 12 hours ago