# Meilisearch vs Amazon OpenSearch Service

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

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Meilisearch | Amazon OpenSearch Service |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Entry paid plan | $20/month for Meilisearch Cloud. The usage-based plan is $30/month for a base of 100,000 documents and 50,000 searches; the resource-based plan starts at $23/month for an XS instance. | $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 shapes offered side by side: usage-based from $30/month against a document and search allowance, or resource-based from $23/month for a named instance size. Self-hosting is free. | 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 | Supported | Supported |
| Hybrid search (vector + keyword) | Vector and hybrid search are listed as product features, and the pricing page sells a document size specifically for embeddings — AI, 12KB, described as documents with embeddings. | 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

### Entry paid plan

- Meilisearch: $20/month for Meilisearch Cloud. The usage-based plan is $30/month for a base of 100,000 documents and 50,000 searches; the resource-based plan starts at $23/month for an XS instance. ([source](https://www.meilisearch.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

- Meilisearch: Two shapes offered side by side: usage-based from $30/month against a document and search allowance, or resource-based from $23/month for a named instance size. Self-hosting is free. ([source](https://www.meilisearch.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/))

### Hybrid search (vector + keyword)

- Meilisearch: Vector and hybrid search are listed as product features, and the pricing page sells a document size specifically for embeddings — AI, 12KB, described as documents with embeddings. ([source](https://www.meilisearch.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 Meilisearch if A managed search engine with a bill you can predict: $20/month to start, or $30 against a documented allowance of 100,000 documents and 50,000 searches. Vector and hybrid search are in the product rather than a tier up.

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: Meilisearch — You want to try before paying, or never pay at all. There is no free plan — the only free access is 14 days — and Typesense and OpenSearch are equally self-hostable if operations is the trade you would rather make.

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

- Kind of free offer: Meilisearch: Free trial
- 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: Meilisearch or Amazon OpenSearch Service?**

Meilisearch: $20/month for Meilisearch Cloud. The usage-based plan is $30/month for a base of 100,000 documents and 50,000 searches; the resource-based plan starts at $23/month for an XS instance.
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.

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

Pick Meilisearch if A managed search engine with a bill you can predict: $20/month to start, or $30 against a documented allowance of 100,000 documents and 50,000 searches. Vector and hybrid search are in the product rather than a tier up.
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.