Meilisearch vs Amazon OpenSearch Service
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of Meilisearch 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 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.
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…
- 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.
- 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.
Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: Meilisearch alternatives · Amazon OpenSearch Service alternatives
3 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.
Meilisearch 0
Amazon OpenSearch Service 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Meilisearch | Amazon OpenSearch Service |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | No | No |
| Entry paid plan | $23/month for an XS instance on the resource-based plan — the cheapest configuration you can actually buy. The page headlines "Starting at $20/month", but nothing is purchasable at that figure: the usage-based plan begins at $30/month for 100,000 documents and 50,000 searches. | $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. |
| Observability | ||
| Self-hostable | Supported | Supported |
| Vector | ||
| 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
- $23/month for an XS instance on the resource-based plan — the cheapest configuration you can actually buy. The page headlines "Starting at $20/month", but nothing is purchasable at that figure: the usage-based plan begins at $30/month for 100,000 documents and 50,000 searches.
- 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 ↓
- Meilisearch Pricing ↗
“Cloud Starting at $20/month [...] Usage-based $30/month for 100,000 documents and 50,000 searches [...] Resource-based from $23/month for an XS instance (0.5 vCPU, 1 GB RAM)”
Read 2026-09-21 · official pricing · Report a correction
- 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 · Report a correction
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.
- 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 ↓
- Meilisearch Pricing ↗
“Usage-based$30/monthBase plan (100K docs, 50K searches)$30/moResource-based$23/monthXS instan”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing · Report a correction
- 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 · Report a correction
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.
- 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 ↓
- Meilisearch Pricing ↗
“ProductFull-text searchVector & hybrid searchFederated searchMultimodal searchFaceted search”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing · Report a correction
- 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 · Report a correction
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 — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.
Questions this comparison answers.
Entry paid plan: Meilisearch or Amazon OpenSearch Service?
Meilisearch: $23/month for an XS instance on the resource-based plan — the cheapest configuration you can actually buy. The page headlines "Starting at $20/month", but nothing is purchasable at that figure: the usage-based plan begins at $30/month for 100,000 documents and 50,000 searches.
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.
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