Pick Algolia if
search / ecommerce teams who will stay on Free (10K search requests, 50K records) while they open a first Visual Editor pin, then pay Grow at $0.50 / 1K requests after 10K (records $0.40 / 1K after 100K).
Read the Algolia pageAlgolia vs Elasticsearch
Our take
Pick Algolia if search / ecommerce teams who will stay on Free (10K search requests, 50K records) while they open a first Visual Editor pin, then pay Grow at $0.50 / 1K requests after 10K (records $0.40 / 1K after 100K). Pick Elasticsearch if search / logs teams who will self-host Basic at $0 — or take Cloud Hosted Standard from $99/month (120 GB / 2 zones) — while they open a first Discover, then Gold $114 only
Best for
Algolia Records you merchandise inside a $0 start
Elasticsearch A Discover table you start at a printed $
Free plan
Algolia $0 · no card. 10K search requests / month. 50K records. 5K recommendation requests / month. 5K crawls / month
Elasticsearch No free plan
Lowest paid
Algolia Crawler overage $0.80
Elasticsearch Synthetics (footnote) $0.0123/mo
Next step up
Algolia
Elasticsearch Cloud Hosted Standard $99/mo
Runs where
Algolia Local or hosted
Elasticsearch Hosted
Watch out
Algolia Free caps at 10K requests and 50K records
Elasticsearch $99 is “as low as” for 120 GB / 2 zones
Last checked
Algolia 2026-10-23 · algolia.com/pricing
Elasticsearch 2026-10-23 · elastic.co/pricing/cloud-hosted
Which one, then?
Pick Elasticsearch if
search / logs teams who will self-host Basic at $0 — or take Cloud Hosted Standard from $99/month (120 GB / 2 zones) — while they open a first Discover, then Gold $114 only when they need reporting and Watcher.
Read the Elasticsearch page