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Meilisearch

by Meili SAS · Database

Rust search engine for application search-as-you-type with typo tolerance, faceting and hybrid semantic search; MIT core plus BSL enterprise parts

MIT AND BUSL-1.1 licenseOpen sourceFreeUsage-basedEnterpriseSelf-hostedCloudSelf-hostable
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Link verified Nov 2, 2026

Overview

Meilisearch is a search engine written in Rust by Meili SAS, built for the search-as-you-type experience of websites and applications. It indexes JSON documents and returns ranked results within milliseconds with typo tolerance, prefix search, synonyms, stop words, faceting, filtering, sorting and geosearch out of the box, configured through a REST API rather than a query DSL. Recent versions add hybrid search that combines keyword relevance with embeddings produced by OpenAI, Hugging Face, Ollama or user-supplied vectors. Official SDKs exist for JavaScript, Python, PHP, Ruby, Go, Rust, Java, Swift and .NET, plus front-end components compatible with InstantSearch.

The repository is dual-licensed: most code is MIT, while files belonging to the Enterprise Edition are under the Business Source License 1.1. Meilisearch Cloud provides hosting with analytics and monitoring. The engine runs as a single process on one node, so it fits product catalogs, documentation and content sites rather than log analytics or very large clusters, where Elasticsearch or OpenSearch are the usual choices.

Capabilities

  • Typo-tolerant, prefix-based instant search
  • Faceting, filtering, sorting and geosearch
  • Hybrid keyword and vector search with embedders
  • Synonyms, stop words and custom ranking rules
  • REST API with SDKs in nine languages
  • Multi-index and multi-search queries

Typical workflows

  1. Site or product search for a web application
  2. Documentation search widget
  3. Hybrid semantic search for a content catalog

Strengths

  • Relevance defaults that need little tuning
  • Single Rust binary, light footprint
  • Managed cloud available

Limitations

  • Single-node architecture; no clustering
  • Enterprise Edition code is under BSL 1.1
  • Not intended for log analytics or aggregations

Prerequisites

  • A server or Docker host, or a Meilisearch Cloud account

Who it is for

  • Web developers adding search to applications

Alternatives & comparison

  • Elasticsearch

    Distributed search and analytics engine on Apache Lucene with full-text, aggregations, vector search and ES|QL; triple-licensed AGPL, SSPL and Elastic License

    MixedOpen source
  • OpenSearch

    Apache-2.0 search and analytics suite forked from Elasticsearch and Kibana, governed by the OpenSearch Software Foundation

    Open sourceOpen source
  • Qdrant

    Open-source vector search engine written in Rust with filterable HNSW indexes, sparse and multi-vector support, REST/gRPC APIs and a managed cloud

    Open sourceOpen source
  • Typesense

    GPL-licensed in-memory search engine in C++ offering typo-tolerant instant search, faceting, vector and hybrid search, with Typesense Cloud hosting

    Open sourceOpen source
Compare Meilisearch with its alternatives →

Sources & verification

Primary sources consulted for this record. Claims are tied to the fields each source supports; the automated link checker re-verifies every URL on a schedule.

  • License
    Meilisearch LICENSE

    https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch/blob/main/LICENSE

    Supports: license_spdx, source_model

    States SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT AND BUSL-1.1 (Enterprise Edition parts under BSL)

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Official documentation
    Meilisearch Documentation

    https://www.meilisearch.com/docs

    Supports: capabilities, languages, data_formats

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Official site
    Meilisearch

    https://www.meilisearch.com/

    Supports: name, summary

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Pricing page
    Meilisearch pricing

    https://www.meilisearch.com/pricing

    Supports: pricing_model

    checked Nov 1, 2026
  • Repository
    meilisearch/meilisearch

    https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch

    Supports: repo_url

    checked Nov 1, 2026
Confidence
High
Reviewed
Nov 1, 2026
Links
Verified · Nov 2, 2026

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