# Algolia vs Amazon OpenSearch Service

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/algolia-vs-amazon-opensearch/

Every value below is read from Algolia's and Amazon OpenSearch Service's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Algolia | Amazon OpenSearch Service |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Entry paid plan | No monthly fee. Grow starts at zero and bills $0.50 per additional 1,000 search requests beyond 10,000 a month, plus $0.40 per additional 1,000 records beyond 100,000. Grow Plus, which adds AI, charges $1.75 per additional 1,000 searches. No magnitude is recorded because a usage rate and a plan fee are not the same number. | $0.24 per OCU-hour for serverless, and that figure is quoted from a worked example on the page rather than from its price table — the table renders the rate as a template placeholder filled in by a pricing API. No monthly minimum is published for either model. |
| Pricing model | Two meters at once: search requests and records, each with an included allowance and a per-1,000 overage. The AI tier changes the search rate and not the record rate. | Two models, billed differently. Provisioned instances are on-demand, reserved or under a savings plan. Serverless bills compute and storage separately, with compute measured in OpenSearch Compute Units that cover CPU, memory and I/O for indexing or querying. |
| Self-hostable | Not supported | Supported |
| Hybrid search (vector + keyword) | Sold as a higher tier rather than a feature flag: Grow Plus is keyword search with AI capabilities, at $1.75 per additional 1,000 searches against Grow's $0.50. | Supported, and billed as a separate workload: a vector search collection cannot share compute units with a search or time-series collection, even under the same KMS key. |

## Where they differ

### Free tier

- Algolia: Yes ([source](https://www.algolia.com/pricing))
- Amazon OpenSearch Service: No ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/pricing/))

### Entry paid plan

- Algolia: No monthly fee. Grow starts at zero and bills $0.50 per additional 1,000 search requests beyond 10,000 a month, plus $0.40 per additional 1,000 records beyond 100,000. Grow Plus, which adds AI, charges $1.75 per additional 1,000 searches. No magnitude is recorded because a usage rate and a plan fee are not the same number. ([source](https://www.algolia.com/pricing))
- Amazon OpenSearch Service: $0.24 per OCU-hour for serverless, and that figure is quoted from a worked example on the page rather than from its price table — the table renders the rate as a template placeholder filled in by a pricing API. No monthly minimum is published for either model. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/pricing/))

### Pricing model

- Algolia: Two meters at once: search requests and records, each with an included allowance and a per-1,000 overage. The AI tier changes the search rate and not the record rate. ([source](https://www.algolia.com/pricing))
- Amazon OpenSearch Service: Two models, billed differently. Provisioned instances are on-demand, reserved or under a savings plan. Serverless bills compute and storage separately, with compute measured in OpenSearch Compute Units that cover CPU, memory and I/O for indexing or querying. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/pricing/))

### Self-hostable

- Algolia: Not supported ([source](https://www.algolia.com/pricing))
- Amazon OpenSearch Service: Supported ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/pricing/))

### Hybrid search (vector + keyword)

- Algolia: Sold as a higher tier rather than a feature flag: Grow Plus is keyword search with AI capabilities, at $1.75 per additional 1,000 searches against Grow's $0.50. ([source](https://www.algolia.com/pricing))
- Amazon OpenSearch Service: Supported, and billed as a separate workload: a vector search collection cannot share compute units with a search or time-series collection, even under the same KMS key. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/opensearch-service/pricing/))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Algolia if Search you do not want to operate. No monthly fee, a standing free plan at 10,000 searches and 50,000 records, and relevance tuning that works out of the box — you pay per search and per record instead of per server.

Pick Amazon OpenSearch Service if An estate already on AWS. Two deployment models under one service — instances you size and reserve, or serverless compute units — with reserved pricing and savings plans available, and IAM, KMS and VPC integration that needs no extra wiring.

Consider something else: Algolia — Traffic is the thing that grows. Beyond the free allowance it is $0.50 per additional 1,000 searches and $0.40 per additional 1,000 records, and $1.75 per 1,000 once you want the AI tier — a bill that rises with success, against three engines you can run yourself for the cost of operations.

Consider something else: Amazon OpenSearch Service — You want a price you can read off a page. The serverless rate renders as a template placeholder filled in by an API, and the only figure on the pricing page is inside a worked example; vector search is also billed as its own collection type that cannot share compute with keyword search.

## Documented by only one

- What the free plan includes: Algolia: 10,000 search requests a month, 50,000 records, 5,000 recommendation requests and 5,000 crawls, with no credit card required.
- Dedicated infrastructure: Amazon OpenSearch Service: Provisioned deployments run on instances you size and reserve; serverless does not expose an instance at all and scales compute units instead.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Algolia or Amazon OpenSearch Service?**

Algolia: No monthly fee. Grow starts at zero and bills $0.50 per additional 1,000 search requests beyond 10,000 a month, plus $0.40 per additional 1,000 records beyond 100,000. Grow Plus, which adds AI, charges $1.75 per additional 1,000 searches. No magnitude is recorded because a usage rate and a plan fee are not the same number.
Amazon OpenSearch Service: $0.24 per OCU-hour for serverless, and that figure is quoted from a worked example on the page rather than from its price table — the table renders the rate as a template placeholder filled in by a pricing API. No monthly minimum is published for either model.

**Free tier: Algolia or Amazon OpenSearch Service?**

Algolia: Yes
Amazon OpenSearch Service: No

**Should I choose Algolia or Amazon OpenSearch Service?**

Pick Algolia if Search you do not want to operate. No monthly fee, a standing free plan at 10,000 searches and 50,000 records, and relevance tuning that works out of the box — you pay per search and per record instead of per server.
Pick Amazon OpenSearch Service if An estate already on AWS. Two deployment models under one service — instances you size and reserve, or serverless compute units — with reserved pricing and savings plans available, and IAM, KMS and VPC integration that needs no extra wiring.