Pick Meilisearch if
app teams who will stay on MIT self-host $0 while they index a first catalog, then start the 14-day Cloud trial (no card) and land on Cloud from $20/month when they do not want to run the engine.
Read the Meilisearch pageMeilisearch vs Typesense
Our take
Pick Meilisearch if app teams who will stay on MIT self-host $0 while they index a first catalog, then start the 14-day Cloud trial (no card) and land on Cloud from $20/month when they do not want to run the engine. Pick Typesense if teams who will stay on the GPL self-host at $0 while they open a first Collection Search, then buy a Typesense Cloud cluster when they do not want to operate the binary — and will
Typesense
open-source search engine
Best for
Meilisearch Search you start at MIT $0 or Cloud from $20
Typesense Typed search you start at $0 on your host (or a Typesense Cloud cluster)
Free plan
Meilisearch $0 · mIT license. No usage cap on the engine. You run the binary
Typesense $0 · gPL-3.0. You run the Typesense binary. Confirmed by the GitHub license key gpl-3.0
Lowest paid
Meilisearch Not published by the vendor
Typesense Not published by the vendor
Runs where
Meilisearch Local; you host it
Typesense Local; you host it
Watch out
Meilisearch The hero says $20
Typesense $0 is the license, not the Cloud cluster
Last checked
Meilisearch 2026-10-22 · meilisearch.com/pricing
Typesense 2026-10-23 · cloud.typesense.org/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick Typesense if
teams who will stay on the GPL self-host at $0 while they open a first Collection Search, then buy a Typesense Cloud cluster when they do not want to operate the binary — and will confirm the cluster $ at checkout because the marketing pricing page does not print it.
Read the Typesense page