Algolia vs Amazon OpenSearch Service
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of Algolia and Amazon OpenSearch Service built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- 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.
- 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.
5 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Algolia 0
Amazon OpenSearch Service 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Algolia | Amazon OpenSearch Service |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| 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. |
| Observability | ||
| Self-hostable | Not supported | Supported |
| Vector | ||
| 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
- Amazon OpenSearch Service
- No
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Algolia Pricing ↗
“Get started building your best search experiences ever with access to some of our features to start for free. No credit card required.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Amazon OpenSearch Service Pricing ↗
“For instances, you can use on-demand or Reserved Instance pricing, or save with Database Savings Plans.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Algolia Pricing ↗
“Grow Keyword search Start for free 10K search requests /month included then $0.50 per additional 1K search requests 100K records included then $0.40 per additional 1K records”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Amazon OpenSearch Service Pricing ↗
“Uses .5 OCU-hours per query for two minutes per hour * 730 hours per month: .5 * 2/60 * 730 * $0.24 per OCU-hours = $3 per month”
Read 2026-09-15 · official 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Algolia Pricing ↗
“Grow Plus NEW Keyword search with AI capabilities Start for free 10K search requests /month included then $1.75 per additional 1K search req”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Amazon OpenSearch Service Pricing ↗
“For Serverless, you are charged for compute and storage separately. Compute capacity is measured in OpenSearch Compute Units (OCUs), which correspond to the CPU, memory, and I/O resources required to index data or run queries.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
Self-hostable
- Algolia
- Not supported
- Amazon OpenSearch Service
- Supported
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Algolia Pricing ↗
“Get started building your best search experiences ever with access to some of our features to start for free. No credit card required.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Amazon OpenSearch Service Pricing ↗
“For instances, you can use on-demand or Reserved Instance pricing, or save with Database Savings Plans.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Algolia Pricing ↗
“Grow Plus NEW Keyword search with AI capabilities Start for free 10K search requests /month included then $1.75 per additional 1K search req”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Amazon OpenSearch Service Pricing ↗
“A vector search collection cannot share OCUs with search and time series collections, even if the vector search collection uses the same KMS key as the search or time series collections.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
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.