Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Meilisearch VS Google Custom Search

Compare Meilisearch VS Google Custom Search and see what are their differences

Meilisearch logo Meilisearch

Ultra relevant, instant, and typo-tolerant full-text search API

Google Custom Search logo Google Custom Search

Google Custom Search enables you to create a search engine for your website, your blog, or a collection of websites.
  • Meilisearch Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-12-16

Meilisearch is a powerful, fast, open-source, easy to use, and deploy search engine. The search and indexation are fully customizable and handles features like typo-tolerance, filters, and synonyms.

  • Google Custom Search Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-10

Meilisearch features and specs

  • Speed
    Meilisearch is optimized for performance and provides very fast search capabilities, often with response times in milliseconds.
  • Relevance
    It offers advanced search features like typo tolerance, synonyms, and configurable ranking rules to ensure highly relevant search results.
  • Ease of Use
    Designed to be user-friendly with a straightforward RESTful API, making it easy to integrate and use.
  • Open Source
    Meilisearch is open source, allowing developers to inspect the code, contribute, and customize it to fit their own needs.
  • Language Support
    It supports multiple languages, ensuring effective full-text search capabilities in various linguistic contexts.
  • Lightweight
    Meilisearch is lightweight and can be deployed on modest hardware, making it suitable for small to medium-sized projects.
  • Real-time Indexing
    It offers real-time indexing, allowing the index to be updated without significant downtime or delay.

Possible disadvantages of Meilisearch

  • Maturity
    As a relatively young project, it may lack some advanced features and optimizations found in more established search solutions like Elasticsearch.
  • Ecosystem
    The ecosystem and community around Meilisearch are still growing, so you might find fewer plugins, extensions, and third-party tools compared to more mature solutions.
  • Scalability
    While suitable for small to medium projects, it might not be as scalable for very large datasets or highly complex queries compared to other search engines like Solr or Elasticsearch.
  • Complex Query Handling
    Meilisearch focuses on simplicity, which means it may lack some of the advanced query capabilities provided by more complex search engines.
  • Documentation
    Though improving, the documentation may not be as comprehensive as that of longer-established projects, which could lead to a steeper learning curve for some users.

Google Custom Search features and specs

  • Ease of Integration
    Google Custom Search is straightforward to integrate into websites and applications, offering a user-friendly setup process with comprehensive documentation and support.
  • Advanced Search Capabilities
    It leverages Google's powerful search algorithms, providing fast, accurate, and relevant search results, benefiting from features like synonyms and advanced language understanding.
  • Customization Options
    Users can customize the search experience to match their website's look and feel, including adjusting the search box, results display, and controlling which sites are indexed.
  • Cost-Effective
    Offers a free tier with sufficient features for small to medium websites and relatively affordable paid plans for larger sites and custom needs.
  • Monetization via AdSense
    Integrates with Google AdSense, allowing website owners to generate revenue through ads displayed alongside search results.
  • Automatic Updates
    Automatically updates search indices, ensuring that the search results are always current without requiring manual input or intervention.

Possible disadvantages of Google Custom Search

  • Ad Inclusions in Free Tier
    The free version of Google Custom Search includes ads in the search results, which might be undesirable for some websites or users.
  • Limited Customization in Free Version
    The free tier has limited customization options compared to the paid versions, which might restrict certain advanced features or modifications.
  • Dependency on Google’s Ecosystem
    Relying on Google Custom Search means relying on Google’s ecosystem, which could be a risk if there are future policy changes or if the service is discontinued.
  • Data Privacy Concerns
    Some organizations might have concerns about data privacy and control, as the search data is processed and stored by Google.
  • Keyword Restrictions
    Certain keywords and search terms might be restricted or censored, limiting the scope of searchable content based on Google's policies.
  • Cost for Advanced Features
    Access to advanced features and higher query limits requires a paid subscription, which could be a significant expense for large-scale or heavily trafficked websites.

Analysis of Meilisearch

Overall verdict

  • Meilisearch is considered a good choice for those looking for a simple, yet powerful search engine solution. It is particularly well-suited for use cases where speed and relevance are critical, and when there is a need for a developer-friendly, open-source product.

Why this product is good

  • Meilisearch is an open-source search engine that is known for its speed and relevance. It is designed to provide fast and relevant search results with minimal configuration. Meilisearch offers features like typo tolerance, filters, and highly customizable search behavior, making it ideal for developers looking to integrate a powerful search experience into their applications. Its ease of setup, lightweight nature, and ease of use make it a popular choice among developers.

Recommended for

    Meilisearch is recommended for developers and small to medium-sized businesses that need a fast and effective search solution with minimal setup time. It is also ideal for projects where open-source technologies are preferred and where there is a need for customization and flexibility in search functionalities.

Analysis of Google Custom Search

Overall verdict

  • Google Custom Search is considered to be a robust and effective tool for individuals or organizations needing a customizable search solution. Its ability to integrate with various platforms and provide analytics makes it a valuable asset for managing and enhancing user search experiences.

Why this product is good

  • Google Custom Search allows users to create a tailored search experience by focusing on specific websites or sections of websites, providing control over search results and prioritizing content that's most relevant to their audience.

Recommended for

  • Website owners looking to improve site search functionality
  • Developers needing to integrate precise search capabilities into applications
  • Businesses and educational institutions aiming for targeted content discovery
  • Content creators wanting to highlight specific resources in searches

Meilisearch videos

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Google Custom Search videos

Create a Google Custom Search Engine To Monetize Your Site

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Meilisearch and Google Custom Search)
Custom Search Engine
64 64%
36% 36
Search Engine
67 67%
33% 33
Custom Search
63 63%
37% 37
Databases
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Meilisearch and Google Custom Search

Meilisearch Reviews

5 Open-Source Search Engines For your Website
MeiliSearch is an open-source, blazingly fast and hyper-relevant search engine that will improve your search experience. It provides an extensive toolset for customization. It works out-of-the-box with a preset that easily answers the needs of most applications. Communication is done with a RESTful API because most developers are already familiar with its norms.
Source: vishnuch.tech
MeiliSearch: Zero-config alternative to Elasticsearch, made in Rust | Hacker News
"We send events to our Amplitude instance to be aware of the number of people who use MeiliSearch. We only send the platform on which the server runs once by day. No other information is sent. If you do not want us to send events, you can disable these analytics by using the MEILI_NO_ANALYTICS env variable."
Recommendations for Poor Man's ElasticSearch on AWS?
I'd second these two. I've been following them for quite some time. I even did an extensive research on which one I'd use, and I ended up with Typesense. I don't remember the specific reasoning though. Both seem quite good. MeiliSearch is written in Rust, which makes it more "hipsterish" ;)

Google Custom Search Reviews

We have no reviews of Google Custom Search yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Google Custom Search should be more popular than Meilisearch. It has been mentiond 7 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Meilisearch mentions (4)

  • Show HN: Cardstock- Free TCG Proxy Manager for Magic, Yugioh, & Pokemon
    This thing is amazing. Kamal gives me everything I could want (easy console access, easy shell access, a way to manage secrets, a way to see my logs, and letsencrypt support for DNS), all without a PaaS tax. The best part is the accessories feature: https://kamal-deploy.org/docs/commands/accessory/. I am running my main app with two accessories: Meilisearch(https://meilisearch.com) and OpenObserve... - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Show HN: Hyvor Blogs – Multi-language blogging platform
    Meilisearch [https://meilisearch.com] for the search index. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • Meilisearch, the Rust search engine, just raised $5M
    Meilisearch is an open-source, lightning-fast, and hyper-relevant search engine that fits effortlessly into your apps, websites, and workflow. You can find more info on our website https://meilisearch.com. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Search engines for website
    Algolia.com - new plans are very affordable Meilisearch.com - open source. Source: about 4 years ago

Google Custom Search mentions (7)

  • Creating your own federated microblog
    Google offers Programmable Search Engine [0], a service where you can create site-specific search box. That's probably good enough for most small personal websites. [0] https://developers.google.com/custom-search/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • Is there a way to search keywords faster?
    Google's programmable search engine comes to mind: https://developers.google.com/custom-search/. Source: over 2 years ago
  • How important are Google search operators/ Google dorks compared to other tools?
    Dorking is not only a very useful technique to find not-indexed results and unvoluntarly exposed content, it it also helps to improve beginner's analyst mindset. You can take it as an introduction to basic query language. What I can strongly suggest is to test your skills by creating your own google custom search engine (https://developers.google.com/custom-search/) that will faciltate your onlime search by... Source: over 2 years ago
  • Brave Search passes 2.5B queries in its first year
    It looks like is targeted towards website owners and not the general public. https://developers.google.com/custom-search. - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
  • Google-clone - Google Search Clone Built Using React/Next js And Tailwind CSS
    A functional replica of Google's search page, you can use it for searches. Styled with Tailwind CSS to Rapidly build and look as close as possible to current google search page, the search results are pulled using Googles Programmable Search Engine and it was build using Next.js the react framework. - Source: dev.to / about 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Meilisearch and Google Custom Search, you can also consider the following products

Typesense - Typo tolerant, delightfully simple, open source search 🔍

Algolia - Algolia's Search API makes it easy to deliver a great search experience in your apps & websites. Algolia Search provides hosted full-text, numerical, faceted and geolocalized search.

Site Search 360 - Site Search 360 enhances and improves your built-in CMS or product search with autocompletion, semantic search, filters, facets, detailed analytics, and a whole lot of customization options.

ElasticSearch - Elasticsearch is an open source, distributed, RESTful search engine.

Vespa.ai - Store, search, rank and organize big data

Klevu - Klevu offers instant site search solution for eCommerce stores.