# Elasticsearch vs Meilisearch (slim)

> Meilisearch scores 78.6 (A) to Elasticsearch's 67.7 (B) for vector search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elasticsearch-vs-meilisearch.md (~2,600 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elasticsearch-vs-meilisearch.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elasticsearch-vs-meilisearch
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

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.

- Elasticsearch: B 67.7, rank #242 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/elasticsearch.min.md
- Meilisearch: A 78.6, rank #14 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/meilisearch.min.md
- Elasticsearch, 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.
- Meilisearch, 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 Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better.

| Category | Elasticsearch | Meilisearch |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 62 | 90 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 88 | 93 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 77 | 87 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 72 | 67 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 35 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 83 | 93 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 71 | 74 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Elasticsearch | Meilisearch |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Elastic | Meilisearch |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Licence | 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 | MIT for the Community Edition. Enterprise Edition code, which powers Meilisearch Cloud, is BUSL-1.1 |
| Tools exposed | none | 4 |
| Last release | 2026-10-06 | 2026-10-01 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-07 | 2025-03-17 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 3.1M npm/wk, 7.8M PyPI/wk | 60k stars, 752k npm/wk |