Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Meilisearch VS Webflow

Compare Meilisearch VS Webflow and see what are their differences

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Meilisearch logo Meilisearch

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

Webflow logo Webflow

Build dynamic, responsive websites in your browser. Launch with a click. Or export your squeaky-clean code to host wherever you'd like. Discover the professional website builder made for designers.
  • 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.

  • Webflow Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-07-09

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.

Webflow features and specs

  • Design Flexibility
    Webflow provides an intuitive visual interface that allows designers to create highly customized and responsive websites without writing code.
  • Integrated CMS
    Webflow includes a built-in CMS that allows users to easily manage dynamic content, making it ideal for blogs, portfolios, and other content-rich sites.
  • SEO Capabilities
    Webflow offers robust SEO tools, including custom meta tags, alt text for images, and clean code output, which can help improve search engine rankings.
  • E-commerce Support
    Webflow provides comprehensive e-commerce features, including product management, checkout processes, and payment gateways, suitable for small to medium-sized online stores.
  • Hosting and Performance
    Webflow offers high-performance hosting with fast loading times, SSL, and global CDN, ensuring websites are secure and perform well.
  • No-Code Platform
    It empowers non-developers to build and maintain websites, breaking down barriers between design and development through its visual development platform.
  • Custom Interactions and Animations
    Webflow allows the creation of sophisticated animations and interactions directly in the designer, enhancing user experience and engagement.

Possible disadvantages of Webflow

  • Learning Curve
    Although it's a no-code platform, Webflow's extensive feature set can be overwhelming for beginners, requiring a significant amount of time to become proficient.
  • Cost
    Webflow's pricing can be relatively high compared to other website builders, especially for e-commerce plans and sites with large amounts of CMS items.
  • Limited Plugins
    Webflow has fewer third-party plugins and integrations compared to platforms like WordPress, which may be limiting for some users needing specific functionalities.
  • Custom Code Limitation
    While Webflow supports custom code, there are limitations on what can be achieved without full access to backend code, which may hinder more complex customizations.
  • E-commerce Scale
    While suitable for small to medium businesses, Webflow's e-commerce capabilities may not be sufficient for large-scale online stores with extensive requirements.
  • Export Restrictions
    Exported code from Webflow can be difficult to maintain if you choose to leave the platform, as the exported files may not easily integrate with other CMSs or platforms.

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 Webflow

Overall verdict

  • Webflow is a strong platform for those who want to create visually appealing, responsive websites without delving deeply into coding. Its powerful features and intuitive design interface make it particularly appealing to designers who want more control over their creative process. However, it may have a learning curve for those new to web design or those accustomed to more code-heavy development environments.

Why this product is good

  • Webflow is considered a good choice for web design and development because it combines the convenience of a visual design tool with the power of a CMS and the flexibility of custom code. It allows designers to create responsive websites without the need for extensive coding knowledge, while also offering the ability to add custom interactions and animations. The platform provides a comprehensive range of hosting services, SSL, and backups, which simplifies site management. The ease of use, coupled with advanced customization options, makes it a preferred choice for many freelancers, agencies, and businesses.

Recommended for

  • Designers looking to quickly prototype and develop websites.
  • Businesses seeking a platform that combines design flexibility with robust hosting features.
  • Agencies seeking a scalable solution for client projects.
  • Freelancers who want to offer end-to-end web design and hosting services.
  • Individuals or businesses looking for a CMS that supports custom integrations and interactions without extensive back-end development.

Meilisearch videos

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Webflow videos

Webflow Review: Excellent Custom Design Tool

More videos:

  • Review - Building a site in Webflow - First impressions review!
  • Review - Squarespace VS Webflow: Website Building Platform Review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Meilisearch and Webflow)
Custom Search Engine
100 100%
0% 0
Website Builder
0 0%
100% 100
Search Engine
100 100%
0% 0
CMS
0 0%
100% 100

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 Webflow

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" ;)

Webflow Reviews

  1. Amazing

    Designing websites with Webflow has been an absolute delight. Its visual interface makes the design process intuitive and efficient. The drag-and-drop functionality for elements is a real time-saver, and the real-time preview allows for instant feedback. Customizing designs to be responsive for different devices is a breeze. Webflow's ability to handle complex animations without code is impressive. All in all, Webflow has made website creation a smooth and enjoyable process. Definitely a game-changer for web design!

    🏁 Competitors: Tilda

Comparing 9 WordPress alternatives & competitors in 2024
Webflow’s visual, composable CMS is feature-complete right out of the box. With native integrations, optimization tools, and managed hosting, you can build, launch, and iterate your website at scale. Webflow also vets Apps built by our community, so you can trust apps that you install — with no need to update software or manage outdated plugins.
Source: webflow.com
19 Best WordPress Alternatives in 2025
Webflow offers more advanced design and animation capabilities than WordPress, allowing for custom-built websites without coding. Pixpa and Squarespace offer advanced portfolio management, e-commerce, and client gallery features tailored for creatives.
Source: www.pixpa.com
The 17 Best Wix Alternatives (2024) Who Else Can You Build Your Website With?
Webflow isn’t for everyone. It’s focused on designers and developers, so the user interface can be overwhelming to beginners. However, their designs are slick and they’re not afraid to show off their website builder: NASA uses it, and Webflow built their own website with the platform.
Top 10 Web Content Management Systems
Webflow is another unique CMS option based on the fact that it does not feature a single line of code anywhere for the user to bother with. Instead, it takes it upon itself to fully cover every single modification that a user may need as part of its preconfigured content management options. The UI is also designed with utility in mind. Whereas Wix also does not feature codes...
Source: cloudzy.com
Top No Code Website Builders in 2023
Webflow is an ideal option for designers and developers wanting to create custom websites with no code. Users can build a website while maintaining complete design control, leveraging advanced customization options, such as CSS and HTML editing.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Webflow seems to be a lot more popular than Meilisearch. While we know about 137 links to Webflow, we've tracked only 4 mentions of Meilisearch. 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

Webflow mentions (137)

View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Meilisearch and Webflow, you can also consider the following products

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

WiX - Create a free website with Wix.com. Customize with Wix' website builder, no coding skills needed. Choose a design, begin customizing and be online today

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.

SquareSpace - Squarespace is the easiest way for anyone to create an exceptional website. Pages, galleries, blogs, e-commerce, domains, hosting, analytics, 24/7 support - all included.

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

WordPress - WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.