Elasticsearch is a distributed, enterprise-grade search engine with powerful analytics capabilities and a massive ecosystem, while Typesense is a lightweight, easier-to-deploy alternative optimized for typo tolerance and sub-100ms search latency. Elasticsearch excels at scale and complex queries; Typesense prioritizes simplicity and speed.
Elasticsearch vs Typesense — Side-by-side comparison on A Versus B
Open-source distributed search and analytics engine for logs, metrics, and traces with flexible deployment options.
Lightweight open-source search engine focused on typo tolerance and sub-100ms latency.
Deployment Complexity. Memory Footprint (Baseline). Search Latency (p99). Typo Tolerance. Ecosystem & Integrations. Maximum Data Scale. Learning Curve
Choose Elasticsearch if you need enterprise-scale search, complex analytics, multi-language support, or have massive datasets requiring distributed clustering. Choose Typesense if you want to launch a search feature quickly, prefer minimal operational overhead, need built-in typo tolerance, or are building a smaller-to-mid-scale application (under 100GB of data).
Elasticsearch: $0.10 - $0.20 | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 30+ days (self-hosted) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 40-80 (self-hosted) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Unlimited (via client libraries) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Petabyte-scale (1000+ TB) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 7 (Lucene/DSL - steep learning curve) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Self-hosted, SaaS (Elastic Cloud), or Kubernetes | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 30-90 days | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: $0 (self-hosted) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: $0 (unlimited after infrastructure cost) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 50-200ms | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 0 (requires custom hardening) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 3 (anomaly detection, forecasting, outlier detection) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Unlimited (enterprise only) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 12-48 (community forums) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 100-500ms | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 1,000+ (tested to 10,000 with advanced tuning) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Native (analyzers, relevance tuning, fuzzy matching) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 1-3 days (schemaless indexing) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: SQL via plugin (Elastic SQL), primary is Query DSL | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 32-64GB for equivalent throughput | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: $0-$10,000 (self-hosted) or $20,000-$60,000 (managed) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 45-120 (manual investigation required) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 6-12 weeks | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 1000+ via community/Beats | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Unlimited (storage-dependent) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 500,000+ EPS per cluster | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 3-6 months | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Complex Query DSL requiring technical expertise | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 68,000+ stars | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 5-10 minutes | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 65 docs/sec per thread | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: $5,000-$50,000 | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Via aggregations (requires custom queries) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 14-28 days | Typesense: N/A
Monthly Cost (100GB index, 1M queries/month)
Elasticsearch: $200-500 self-hosted | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Petabyte-scale (unlimited) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Requires DevOps expertise | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 100-300ms | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 9/10 (plugins, analyzers, scripting) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Community-based or 4+ hours (enterprise) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 14-28 days (self-hosted) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: $3,000-$8,000 | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: $0.02-$0.05 | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: ~300 integrations | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Unlimited (configurable) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 1.0-2.0 FTE | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Advanced EQL with full customization | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 8/10 (requires DevOps expertise) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 2-4 GB | Typesense: 512 MB
Elasticsearch: 120-240 minutes | Typesense: 15-30 minutes
Elasticsearch: 50-200 ms | Typesense: 10-50 ms
Elasticsearch: 1+ Billion (across clusters) | Typesense: 100+ Million (single/dual node)
Elasticsearch: 40+ aggregation types | Typesense: 8-12 basic faceting/metrics
Elasticsearch: Manual configuration required | Typesense: Built-in and enabled
Elasticsearch: ~60,000 stars | Typesense: ~18,000 stars
Elasticsearch: 14-30 days | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 30-40 (via Beats) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: $0 (open-source) or $12,000 | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Requires third-party integrations | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Full Elasticsearch Query DSL and custom scripts | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 1M+ active developers | Typesense: N/A
Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) Improvement
Elasticsearch: Depends on manual investigation | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 80-200 hours (extensive) | Typesense: N/A
Total Cost of Ownership (3-year, 500GB/month ingestion)
Elasticsearch: $120,000 (self-hosted licensing + 2 FTEs infrastructure) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Logs, metrics (via plugins), custom JSON data | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 100-2000ms (depends on tuning) | Typesense: N/A
Required Infrastructure Team Size (100 users)
Elasticsearch: 2-3 (cluster management + optimization) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 180,000+ (open-source) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 512 MB | Typesense: 50 MB
Elasticsearch: 150 ms | Typesense: 35 ms
Elasticsearch: Unlimited (petabyte-scale) | Typesense: 1-5 TB per instance
Elasticsearch: 60-120 minutes | Typesense: 5-10 minutes
Elasticsearch: 1000+ plugins/integrations | Typesense: 50+ integrations
Elasticsearch: 30+ languages | Typesense: 15 languages
Elasticsearch: Requires configuration/plugin | Typesense: Built-in and enabled by default
Elasticsearch: 500,000+ companies worldwide | Typesense: 10,000+ companies globally
Typical Query Latency (1B rows, GROUP BY)
Elasticsearch: 500-2000ms | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Native, highly optimized (primary feature) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Via Beats and Logstash (indirect) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Low-Medium (simpler operations) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 5+ PB (operational limit) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: SQL plugin available (limited JOIN support) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: $180,000-$240,000 | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 2-4 full-time engineers | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: 300+ community/official | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Lucene, KQL, SQL, JavaScript | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: $0.50-$1.50 | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Varies by deployment (self-hosted: customer responsibility) | Typesense: N/A
Elasticsearch: Yes (SSPL/Elastic License) | Typesense: N/A
How to choose between Elasticsearch and Typesense
Elasticsearch vs Typesense — Structured Comparison Data
Machine-readable comparison dataset for Elasticsearch vs Typesense. Contains 110 attribute comparisons, 5 FAQ pairs.
Elasticsearch vs Typesense — Attribute Category Vocabulary
Taxonomy of attribute categories used to classify comparison data for Elasticsearch vs Typesense.
When should I use Elasticsearch over Typesense?
Choose Elasticsearch if you have (1) datasets exceeding 5TB requiring distributed clustering, (2) complex aggregations and analytics needs, (3) multilingual full-text search requirements across 30+ languages, (4) existing Elastic Stack integration (Logstash, Kibana), or (5) mission-critical deployments requiring proven enterprise support. Netflix and Lyft handle 100+ billion queries daily on Elasticsearch.
When should I use Typesense over Elasticsearch?
Choose Typesense if you need (1) instant deployment with minimal ops overhead, (2) sub-100ms search latency as a core requirement, (3) built-in typo tolerance without configuration, (4) low-memory footprint for containerized environments, or (5) a simpler developer experience with less DSL complexity. Typesense excels for e-commerce, SaaS, and mobile search features.
Can I migrate from Elasticsearch to Typesense or vice versa?
Migration is possible but non-trivial. Elasticsearch uses a different query DSL and index structure than Typesense. Tools like logstash-output-typesense exist, but require custom scripting for schema translation. For smaller datasets (under 50GB), migration takes 1-2 weeks; for larger datasets, plan 4-8 weeks. Typesense to Elasticsearch is simpler due to Elasticsearch's broader compatibility.
What are the hosting costs for each platform?
Elasticsearch: Self-hosted costs $1,000-$5,000/month for modest scale (10 nodes × 2GB RAM); Elastic Cloud managed service ranges $500-$5,000+/month depending on throughput. Typesense: Self-hosted costs nearly nothing (minimal infrastructure); Typesense Cloud costs $39-$399/month depending on data size and QPS, making it significantly cheaper for small-to-mid projects.
Which has better documentation and community support?
Elasticsearch dominates with 15+ years of community content, 50,000+ Stack Overflow questions, multiple books, and enterprise support contracts. Typesense has growing documentation (1,000+ GitHub discussions) but fewer third-party resources. For complex troubleshooting, Elasticsearch community is more comprehensive; for basic use cases, Typesense documentation is clearer and more approachable.
How to Choose Between Elasticsearch and Typesense
Deployment Complexity: Elasticsearch has Requires JVM, multiple nodes, complex configuration, while Typesense has Single binary, minimal configuration needed.
Memory Footprint (Baseline): Elasticsearch has ~512MB minimum (with overhead), while Typesense has ~50MB for basic instance.
Search Latency (p99): Elasticsearch has 50-200ms on standard config, while Typesense has 10-50ms (optimized for sub-100ms).
Typo Tolerance: Elasticsearch has Requires plugin configuration, while Typesense has Built-in, enabled by default.
Ecosystem & Integrations: Elasticsearch has 1000+ plugins, 15+ years of community tools, while Typesense has 50+ integrations, growing ecosystem.
Maximum Data Scale: Elasticsearch has Petabyte-scale with clustering, while Typesense has Terabyte-scale per instance.
Learning Curve: Elasticsearch has Steep - requires REST API mastery, while Typesense has Gentle - intuitive API design.