Algolia vs. Elasticsearch

Introduction

Search is more than a website feature. It’s mission critical. It drives all forms of discovery and navigation on your site. It delivers customer acquisition and conversions. It’s crucial for revenue growth.

Our 2023 ecommerce site search trends report shows that 50% of businesses see search as a strong revenue driver. Of business that have adopted advanced product search and discovery technology, 71% are satisfied or very satisfied with the revenue they have generated from search so far.

Businesses have a wide variety of search solutions to choose from. But not all search is created equal. Choosing the right search solution can make or break your ability to scale your customer experience.

One of the most common questions we get is: How does Algolia compare with Elasticsearch?

Anyone asking knows that great search is a major investment. It takes infrastructure, time, budgets, talented people, and maintenance. Weighing the options is a necessary step.

This ebook is designed to do that. Our goal is to help you work better and save money. Focusing on business value, this ebook compares Algolia and Elasticsearch to help you make the best decision for your business case.

7 out of 10 businesses that implemented advanced search capabilities reported increased revenue from those enhancements

A business imperative to meet sky-high expectations

Wherever users are, they expect consumer-grade search on par with the world’s best. From online shopping to business applications, to content discovery, people want intuitive results, fast.

Businesses expect more from search, too. They’re learning that every millisecond impacts consumer behaviour. Even the tiniest differences in latency can lead to lost sales. A study by Deloitte showed that speed correlates to more views, increased spend, and higher conversion rates. Slow loading times, in contrast, frustrate visitors and drive them away, leaving empty or abandoned carts behind.

To succeed, organizations need to keep pace with their users. The problem is, built-in search options on monolithic ecommerce platforms just aren’t cutting it anymore. They can be slow, expensive to customize, and frustrating to configure. The same can be said of open source options like Elasticsearch. As Forrester Research has shown, they are overly complex and labor intensive.

Raising the bar with Algolia

Algolia was designed for consumer-grade search from the get-go. It’s the world’s only API-first hybrid search engine built for the modern technology stack. The next section will dig deeper into what that means for your search technology investment, as compared to Elasticsearch.