# Algolia

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/search/algolia/

Hosted search and recommendations API billed by search request and by record, with typo tolerance, faceting and AI ranking built in.

## Who it suits

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.

Consider something else if 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.

## iScore

83 / 100 (80% interval 74–92), rank 1 of 5 in search.

inetGeek's own reading, computed from sourced facts against category peers by disclosed rules. Not a provider claim. Intervals are 80%; a provider with few documented facts is pulled toward the category middle rather than scored on what little is known.
Method: https://inetgeek.com/iscore/. Full output with every criterion's basis: https://inetgeek.com/scores.json. Every search peer ranked: https://inetgeek.com/search/algolia/alternatives/

- Price: 78 (51–100), weight 36%, 1 of 2 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: free_offer_type
- Capabilities: 88 (82–95), weight 29%, 2 of 2 criteria scored
- Trust and compliance: 95 (89–100), weight 21%, 0 of 10 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: customer_managed_keys, dedicated_infrastructure, encryption_at_rest, gdpr_data_residency, hipaa_eligible, iso27001, pci_dss, private_networking, rbac, soc2
- Evidence: 70 (70–70), weight 14%, 4 of 4 criteria scored

## What the documentation says

### Pricing

- Free tier: Yes ([source](https://www.algolia.com/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- What the free plan includes: 10,000 search requests a month, 50,000 records, 5,000 recommendation requests and 5,000 crawls, with no credit card required. ([source](https://www.algolia.com/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- 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. ([source](https://www.algolia.com/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- 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. ([source](https://www.algolia.com/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

### Observability

- Self-hostable: Not supported ([source](https://www.algolia.com/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

### 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. ([source](https://www.algolia.com/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

## Compared with

- [Algolia vs Meilisearch](https://inetgeek.com/compare/algolia-vs-meilisearch/)
- [Algolia vs Typesense](https://inetgeek.com/compare/algolia-vs-typesense/)
- [Algolia vs Amazon OpenSearch Service](https://inetgeek.com/compare/algolia-vs-amazon-opensearch/)