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Head to head · Vector search · October 2026 research run

Elasticsearch vs Meilisearch

Meilisearch scores 78.6 (A) on agent readiness against Elasticsearch's 67.7 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Elasticsearch leads on security & auth. Both do vector search.

Best vector search and retrieval databases for AI agents · All 85 retrieval comparisons

ElasticsearchElastic · HTTP API B67.7/100#242 of 950 MeilisearchMeilisearch · HTTP API A78.6/100#14 of 950

Which one, for what

Elasticsearch B

Good for Retrieval that needs keyword relevance, filters and vectors in one query, and teams already running Elastic for logs or security.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 72 against 67

Watch for

More than 20 status notices marked major between 10 July and 8 October 2026, three of them regional service incidents

Meilisearch A

Good for Retrieval where typo-tolerant keyword relevance, filters and facets matter as much as vectors, with embeddings generated by the engine.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 90 against 62
  • Schema & documentation, 93 against 88
  • Agent ergonomics, 87 against 77
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 35
  • Maintenance & community, 93 against 83

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for

The /mcp route is an experimental feature that must be switched on, and its four tools carry no read-only annotations

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runElasticsearchMeilisearchEdge
Reliability16%206290Meilisearch +28
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28893Meilisearch +5
Agent ergonomics13%16.27787Meilisearch +10
Security & auth14%17.57267Elasticsearch +5
Payments & pricing10%12.53540Meilisearch +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88393Meilisearch +10
Transparency & trust7%8.87174Meilisearch +3
Negative events≤15-20
Total67.7 · B78.6 · A

Facts side by side

FactElasticsearchMeilisearch
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorElasticMeilisearch
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingPay per usePay per use
x402nono
LicenceAGPL-3.0, SSPL-1.0 or Elastic Licence 2.0 at the user's choice for most source. The x-pack folder is under Elastic Licence 2.0 only. Elastic Cloud is a proprietary service under Elastic's termsMIT for the Community Edition. Enterprise Edition code, which powers Meilisearch Cloud, is BUSL-1.1
Tools exposednone4
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-062026-10-01
Terms last updatedcouldn't be readno date given
Privacy policy last updated2026-09-072025-03-17
Customer content may train modelscouldn't be readnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accesscouldn't be readnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingcouldn't be readyes
Terms or service can change without noticecouldn't be readnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivercouldn't be readnot found in the text
Popularity3.1M npm/wk, 7.8M PyPI/wk60k stars, 752k npm/wk

Verdicts

Elasticsearch

Keyword, dense and sparse vector, and hybrid search with rank fusion sit behind one OpenAPI-described REST API, with API keys scoped to indices and privileges. The status page lists more than 20 incidents marked major since July 2026, and Elasticsearch 9.5.0 returned incorrect results for some queries without raising an error.

Meilisearch

Keyword, vector and hybrid search share one request, behind keys scoped by action and index and a published OpenAPI 3.1 file with 143 operations. The built-in MCP server is experimental and read-only, and Cloud access starts with a browser sign-up and a 14-day trial.

Before you call either

Elasticsearch

  1. Send Authorization: ApiKey <key> to the project's Elasticsearch URL. The MCP server is on the Kibana URL at /api/agent_builder/mcp
  2. Create the MCP key with feature_agentBuilder.read and only the index patterns needed, or the endpoint answers 403
  3. On 429, wait and retry with exponential backoff. Do not set short client timeouts, because a retried request joins the back of the queue
  4. Page past 10,000 hits with search_after, not from and size
  5. Tool calls made directly through the Tools API skip Agent Builder's confirmation prompts, so restrict the key instead

Meilisearch

  1. Create a key with only search, documents.get and indexes.get on the indexes needed. The default search key fails listIndexes and describeIndex over MCP
  2. Enable the mcpRoute experimental feature first. Until then /mcp answers feature_not_enabled
  3. For hybrid search send hybrid with an embedder name configured in the index settings and a semanticRatio from 0 to 1
  4. Writes return a taskUid and run asynchronously. Poll the task before searching for the new documents
  5. On 503 too_many_search_requests, wait for the Retry-After header (10 seconds) before retrying

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Elasticsearch or Meilisearch?

Meilisearch scores 78.6 (A) on agent readiness against Elasticsearch's 67.7 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Elasticsearch leads on security & auth.

Do Elasticsearch and Meilisearch need an API key?

Elasticsearch takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Meilisearch needs an API key.

Can an agent call Elasticsearch and Meilisearch without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Elasticsearch. No hosted endpoint is listed for Meilisearch.

Are Elasticsearch and Meilisearch open source?

Yes. Elasticsearch is open source (AGPL-3.0, SSPL-1.0 or Elastic Licence 2.0 at the user's choice for most source. The `x-pack` folder is under Elastic Licence 2.0 only. Elastic Cloud is a proprietary service under Elastic's terms). Meilisearch is open source (MIT for the Community Edition. Enterprise Edition code, which powers Meilisearch Cloud, is BUSL-1.1).

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