Meilisearch

What it does

Meilisearch is an open-source search engine that indexes your content and exposes it through a single REST API. You push documents to an index, and it stores them, builds the search indexes, and, when configured with an embedder, generates vector embeddings automatically. Results can power search bars for end users or ground answers for AI assistants.

Teams use it to add search to websites, apps, documentation, e-commerce catalogs, or internal knowledge bases. Capabilities include typo-tolerant full-text search, semantic and hybrid search that merges keyword and vector results, multimodal search across images, video, and audio, and built-in RAG for conversational answers grounded in indexed data. It ships as a single binary with no separate vector store to manage.

It suits developers and teams building search or retrieval-augmented features. Meilisearch is MIT-licensed and can be self-hosted, or used as the managed Cloud service with a 14-day free trial that needs no credit card. Cloud billing is usage-based or resource-based, so verify current rates on the pricing page. Self-hosting means you handle updates, backups, and scaling.

What it can do

• Full-text search with typo tolerance, geosearch, and faceting
• Semantic search and hybrid search that blends keyword and semantic results
• Multimodal search across images, video, and audio using AI-powered embeddings
• Vector storage for similarity queries and RAG applications
• Filtering, faceting, and sorting for building search interfaces
• Federated search across multiple data sources and search analytics

Works with

• JavaScript SDK
• PHP SDK
• Python SDK
• Ruby SDK
• Java SDK
• Go SDK
• .NET SDK
• Dart SDK
• Rust SDK
• Swift SDK

Before you choose

• Cloud billing is usage-based or resource-based; use the pricing page cost estimator with your document count, search volume, and document size.
• Self-hosting is free under the MIT license, but you manage updates, backups, and scaling yourself.
• Embedder and model costs for auto-embeddings are not detailed on the pricing page; verify them before budgeting for semantic search.

Listed under

• Productivity
• Knowledge and search
• Developers
• Ecommerce
• Open source
• Search
• Semantic search
• Site search

Get started

Cloud trial requires no credit card; self-hosting is available under the MIT license.

1. Create a Meilisearch Cloud account or deploy the open-source binary on your own infrastructure.
2. Send your documents to an index using one of the SDKs or the REST API.
3. Optionally configure an embedder to generate vector embeddings automatically for semantic search.

Cloud has a 14-day free trial with no credit card needed. Paid Cloud pricing is usage-based or resource-based and the page shows examples rather than a full rate table, so confirm current rates on the pricing page. Self-hosting is free under the MIT license. Enterprise requires contacting sales.

14-day free trial.

Source: meilisearch.com/pricing, checked 29 Oct 2026. Prices can change; check before you buy.

Sources for this overview

Product pages, documentation, and pricing checked 29 Oct 2026. Each source supports part of the overview; availability and prices can change.

• Welcome to Meilisearch - Meilisearch Documentation ↗www.meilisearch.com
• Meilisearch: Unified Search & AI Retrieval Platform ↗www.meilisearch.com
• Pricing | Meilisearch ↗www.meilisearch.com
• Meilisearch: Unified Search & AI Retrieval Platform ↗www.meilisearch.com

Company website

meilisearch.com: product, pricing and policy pages

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Last checked 29 Oct 2026. Every field keeps its source and date; unknown means we couldn’t confirm it.