# Typesense vs Amazon OpenSearch Service

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

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Typesense | Amazon OpenSearch Service |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Entry paid plan | None published. typesense.org/pricing redirects to a cluster configurator rather than a plan table, so the cost depends entirely on the RAM, CPU and node count you choose and there is no entry figure to quote. | $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 | Free to self-host; the managed cloud prices a cluster you specify rather than a tier you pick. Support and migration consulting are sold separately, quoted at $5,200 for a year of prioritised business support. | 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 search, semantic search and built-in RAG are listed alongside fuzzy search, faceted navigation and geo search — one engine rather than a separate product. | 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

- Typesense: None published. typesense.org/pricing redirects to a cluster configurator rather than a plan table, so the cost depends entirely on the RAM, CPU and node count you choose and there is no entry figure to quote. ([source](https://typesense.org/))
- 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

- Typesense: Free to self-host; the managed cloud prices a cluster you specify rather than a tier you pick. Support and migration consulting are sold separately, quoted at $5,200 for a year of prioritised business support. ([source](https://cloud.typesense.org/pricing/calculator))
- 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)

- Typesense: Vector search, semantic search and built-in RAG are listed alongside fuzzy search, faceted navigation and geo search — one engine rather than a separate product. ([source](https://typesense.org/))
- 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 Typesense if Running it yourself. Open source, in-memory, and unusually complete for the category — vector search, semantic search and built-in RAG sit beside fuzzy search, faceting and geo search in one engine rather than across tiers.

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: Typesense — You need to know the hosted cost before committing. Typesense Cloud publishes no plan: the pricing page is a configurator that prices whatever cluster you specify, and support is a separate purchase quoted at $5,200 a year.

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

- Support on entry paid plan: Typesense: Sold as an add-on rather than bundled: a year of prioritised business support with migration consulting is quoted at $5,200, and the enterprise equivalent at $9,100.
- 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: Typesense or Amazon OpenSearch Service?**

Typesense: None published. typesense.org/pricing redirects to a cluster configurator rather than a plan table, so the cost depends entirely on the RAM, CPU and node count you choose and there is no entry figure to quote.
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 Typesense or Amazon OpenSearch Service?**

Pick Typesense if Running it yourself. Open source, in-memory, and unusually complete for the category — vector search, semantic search and built-in RAG sit beside fuzzy search, faceting and geo search in one engine rather than across tiers.
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.