Elasticsearch is a proprietary search engine owned by Elastic with a freemium model and closed-source components, while OpenSearch is a fully open-source fork maintained by AWS and the community with no proprietary licensing restrictions. Elasticsearch offers more advanced features and enterprise support, whereas OpenSearch provides greater transparency and cost predictability for large-scale deployments.
Elasticsearch vs OpenSearch — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Proprietary distributed search and analytics engine by Elastic with cloud-native architecture.
Open-source search engine forked from Elasticsearch 7.10, maintained by AWS and community.
Source Code Model. Annual Licensing Cost (Small Deployment). ML-Powered Features. Primary Maintainer. Vendor Lock-in Risk. Enterprise Support SLA. API Compatibility
Choose Elasticsearch if you need advanced machine learning capabilities, premium 24/7 enterprise support, and don't mind licensing costs for production workloads. Choose OpenSearch if you prioritize cost savings, full source code transparency, want to avoid vendor lock-in, and can leverage community support or hire dedicated DevOps resources.
Elasticsearch: $0.10 - $0.20 | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 30+ days (self-hosted) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 40-80 (self-hosted) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Unlimited (via client libraries) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Petabyte-scale (1000+ TB) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 7 (Lucene/DSL - steep learning curve) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Self-hosted, SaaS (Elastic Cloud), or Kubernetes | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 30-90 days | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: $0 (self-hosted) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: $0 (unlimited after infrastructure cost) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 50-200ms | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 0 (requires custom hardening) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 3 (anomaly detection, forecasting, outlier detection) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Unlimited (enterprise only) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 12-48 (community forums) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 100-500ms | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 1,000+ (tested to 10,000 with advanced tuning) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 4:1 to 8:1 | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Native (analyzers, relevance tuning, fuzzy matching) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 1-3 days (schemaless indexing) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: SQL via plugin (Elastic SQL), primary is Query DSL | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 32-64GB for equivalent throughput | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 66,000+ | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: $0-$10,000 (self-hosted) or $20,000-$60,000 (managed) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 45-120 (manual investigation required) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 6-12 weeks | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 1000+ via community/Beats | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Unlimited (storage-dependent) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 500,000+ EPS per cluster | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 3-6 months | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Complex Query DSL requiring technical expertise | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 68,000+ stars | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 5-10 minutes | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 65 docs/sec per thread | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: $5,000-$50,000 | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Via aggregations (requires custom queries) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 14-28 days | OpenSearch: N/A
Monthly Cost (100GB index, 1M queries/month)
Elasticsearch: $200-500 self-hosted | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Petabyte-scale (unlimited) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Requires DevOps expertise | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 100-300ms | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 9/10 (plugins, analyzers, scripting) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Community-based or 4+ hours (enterprise) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 14-28 days (self-hosted) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: $3,000-$8,000 | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: $0.02-$0.05 | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: ~300 integrations | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Unlimited (configurable) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 1.0-2.0 FTE | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Advanced EQL with full customization | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 120-240 minutes | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 50-200 ms | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 1+ Billion (across clusters) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 40+ aggregation types | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Manual configuration required | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: ~60,000 stars | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: $50,000-150,000 | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 14-30 days | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 30-40 (via Beats) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: $0 (open-source) or $12,000 | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Requires third-party integrations | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Full Elasticsearch Query DSL and custom scripts | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 1M+ active developers | OpenSearch: N/A
Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) Improvement
Elasticsearch: Depends on manual investigation | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 80-200 hours (extensive) | OpenSearch: N/A
Total Cost of Ownership (3-year, 500GB/month ingestion)
Elasticsearch: $120,000 (self-hosted licensing + 2 FTEs infrastructure) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Logs, metrics (via plugins), custom JSON data | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 100-2000ms (depends on tuning) | OpenSearch: N/A
Required Infrastructure Team Size (100 users)
Elasticsearch: 2-3 (cluster management + optimization) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 180,000+ (open-source) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Unlimited (petabyte-scale) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 60-120 minutes | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 1000+ plugins/integrations | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 30+ languages | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Requires configuration/plugin | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 500,000+ companies worldwide | OpenSearch: N/A
Typical Query Latency (1B rows, GROUP BY)
Elasticsearch: 500-2000ms | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Native, highly optimized (primary feature) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 68,000+ | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Via Beats and Logstash (indirect) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Low-Medium (simpler operations) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 5+ PB (operational limit) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: SQL plugin available (limited JOIN support) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: $180,000-$240,000 | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 2-4 full-time engineers | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Lucene, KQL, SQL, JavaScript | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: $0.50-$1.50 | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Varies by deployment (self-hosted: customer responsibility) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Yes (SSPL/Elastic License) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: $0 (self-hosted) / $884 (cloud) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Unlimited (user-configured) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 40-80 hours for production cluster | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Requires ML plugins or third-party tools | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Query DSL (complex, steep learning curve) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 45+ via Logstash and Beats | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: $10,600-$40,000 (Elastic Cloud) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Native with advanced analyzers | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 8-16 GB | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: ~100-500ms | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 5/10 (moderate) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 10-50 billion (performance degradation) | OpenSearch: N/A
Annual Licensing Cost (Small Deployment)
Elasticsearch: $0 (self-managed) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 1,000,000+ | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 2-4 weeks | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: 67,000+ stars | OpenSearch: 9,600+ stars
Elasticsearch: Via plugin (not native) | OpenSearch: N/A
Elasticsearch: Proprietary SSPL/Elastic License (features restricted) | OpenSearch: AGPL 2.0 Open Source (unrestricted)
Elasticsearch: $1.95/hour minimum ($429/month) | OpenSearch: $0.30/hour minimum (~$216/month on AWS)
Elasticsearch: Free (open source core) | OpenSearch: Free (fully open source)
Elasticsearch: ~50,000 documents/second | OpenSearch: ~48,000 documents/second
Elasticsearch: ~45ms average across distributions | OpenSearch: ~48ms average across distributions
Elasticsearch: 1000+ verified integrations | OpenSearch: 250+ community integrations
Elasticsearch: 23+ years in market | OpenSearch: 4 years (forked from Elasticsearch 7.10)
Elasticsearch: N/A | OpenSearch: Not available
Query Performance (Complex Aggregations)
Elasticsearch: N/A | OpenSearch: Full open-source
Elasticsearch: N/A | OpenSearch: Community-based only
Elasticsearch: N/A | OpenSearch: 99% compatible
Elasticsearch: N/A | OpenSearch: Low (fully portable)
How to choose between Elasticsearch and OpenSearch
Elasticsearch vs OpenSearch — Structured Comparison Data
Machine-readable comparison dataset for Elasticsearch vs OpenSearch. Contains 143 attribute comparisons, 5 FAQ pairs.
Elasticsearch vs OpenSearch — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Elasticsearch vs OpenSearch.
Can I migrate from Elasticsearch to OpenSearch without downtime?
Yes, OpenSearch maintains 99% API compatibility with Elasticsearch, enabling snapshot-based migration. You can create a snapshot from Elasticsearch 6.8 or 7.x and restore it directly into OpenSearch. However, Elasticsearch 8.x+ uses proprietary features; migration requires index replication during the transition. AWS recommends a blue-green deployment strategy with 1-2 hours of read-only mode during cutover.
Why did AWS fork Elasticsearch into OpenSearch?
In January 2021, Elastic changed Elasticsearch's license from open-source SSPL to a proprietary Elastic License + AGPL, restricting cloud providers from offering managed services. AWS forked the last open-source version (7.10) to maintain community-driven development. This gives AWS freedom to offer Amazon OpenSearch Service without licensing restrictions and allows enterprises to avoid proprietary licensing costs.
Is OpenSearch suitable for production use at enterprise scale?
Yes, OpenSearch powers production clusters at AWS, Capital One, Viasat, and other Fortune 500 companies handling petabytes of data. However, you must provide your own 24/7 support team or hire AWS Managed Services. Elasticsearch's premium support tier is better for organizations lacking DevOps expertise.
What machine learning features does OpenSearch lack?
OpenSearch lacks Elasticsearch's ML suite: no anomaly detection, forecasting, or automated alerting. However, OpenSearch supports plugins for basic alerting and anomaly detection via third-party tools like OpenSearch Anomaly Detection plugin (community-maintained). For real-time ML workloads, Elasticsearch ML is significantly more mature with production-grade algorithms.
How much can switching to OpenSearch save on licensing?
Elasticsearch Gold tier costs $7,200/year minimum plus additional per-node fees. A mid-sized cluster (10 nodes) costs $15,000-$25,000 annually. OpenSearch has zero licensing costs but may require 1-2 dedicated DevOps engineers ($150k-$200k annually). Organizations with existing DevOps talent save $15,000-$25,000/year; those hiring new staff break even or lose money.
How to Choose Between Elasticsearch and OpenSearch
Source Code Model: Elasticsearch has Proprietary (SSPL license), while OpenSearch has Fully open-source (AGPL/Elastic License).
Consider: Annual Licensing Cost (Small Deployment)
Annual Licensing Cost (Small Deployment): Elasticsearch has $7,200 - $15,000, while OpenSearch has $0.
ML-Powered Features: Elasticsearch has Yes (Elastic ML, anomaly detection), while OpenSearch has Limited (basic alerting only).
Primary Maintainer: Elasticsearch has Elastic Inc. (private company), while OpenSearch has AWS & open-source community.
Vendor Lock-in Risk: Elasticsearch has High (proprietary tooling), while OpenSearch has Low (fully portable).
Enterprise Support SLA: Elasticsearch has 99.9% uptime (premium tier), while OpenSearch has Community-based support only.
API Compatibility: Elasticsearch has OpenSearch-compatible API, while OpenSearch has Drop-in Elasticsearch replacement.