# Meilisearch

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

Open-source search engine offered as a managed cloud priced by instance or by usage, and free to run yourself.

## Who it suits

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.

Consider something else if 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.

## iScore

60 / 100 (80% interval 53–67), rank 3 of 5 in search — interval overlaps the next rank, so this is an ordering, not a finding.

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/meilisearch/alternatives/

- Price: 11 (0–36), weight 36%, 2 of 2 criteria scored
- Capabilities: 90 (84–97), 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: No ([source](https://www.meilisearch.com/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- Kind of free offer: Free trial ([source](https://www.meilisearch.com/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- 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. ([source](https://www.meilisearch.com/pricing), read 2026-09-15)
- 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. ([source](https://www.meilisearch.com/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

### Observability

- Self-hostable: Supported ([source](https://www.meilisearch.com/pricing), read 2026-09-15)

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

## Compared with

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