Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

OpenSearch VS Google Custom Search Engine

Compare OpenSearch VS Google Custom Search Engine and see what are their differences

OpenSearch logo OpenSearch

OpenSearch is a community-driven, open source search and analytics suite derived from Apache 2.0 licensed Elasticsearch 7.10.2 & Kibana 7.10.2. It consists of a search engine daemon, and a visualization and user interface, OpenSearch Dashboards.

Google Custom Search Engine logo Google Custom Search Engine

Google Custom Search is a platform provided by Google that allows web developers to feature specialized information in web searches, refine and categorize queries and create customized search engines, based on Google Search.
  • OpenSearch Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-18
  • Google Custom Search Engine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-31

OpenSearch features and specs

  • Open Source
    OpenSearch is released under the Apache 2.0 License, allowing users to freely use, modify, and distribute the software without licensing fees.
  • Elasticsearch Compatibility
    OpenSearch maintains compatibility with popular Elasticsearch features and APIs, allowing for seamless integration for those familiar with Elasticsearch.
  • Community Driven Development
    As an open-source project, it encourages community contributions and feedback, leading to rapid innovation and a diverse set of features.
  • Enhanced Security Features
    OpenSearch includes built-in security features like authentication, encryption, and role-based access control out of the box.
  • Comprehensive Visualization Tools
    The OpenSearch Dashboards offer extensive data visualization tools that are comparable to and compatible with Kibana, making it easier to explore and visualize data.

Possible disadvantages of OpenSearch

  • Relatively New Project
    Being a newer project compared to Elasticsearch, OpenSearch might have less maturity in certain advanced features or optimizations.
  • Smaller Community
    While growing, the OpenSearch community is smaller compared to Elasticsearch, potentially offering less community support or fewer third-party plugins.
  • Potential Steeper Learning Curve
    For users switching from proprietary systems or Elasticsearch itself, there might be a learning curve as they adapt to any differences or nuances.
  • Forking Concerns
    As a fork of Elasticsearch and Kibana, some users may have concerns about long-term feature parity or divergence from the systems they are used to.

Google Custom Search Engine features and specs

  • Easy Integration
    Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) allows for seamless integration into your website with just a few lines of code, providing a hassle-free way to add powerful search capabilities.
  • Customizable Appearance
    The appearance of the search engine can be customized to match the aesthetics of your website, ensuring a consistent user experience.
  • Google Search Algorithms
    CSE leverages Google's advanced search algorithms, which means it provides highly relevant search results and reliable performance.
  • Filtering and Restrictions
    You can specify certain sites or pages to be included or excluded from the search results, allowing for tailored control over search parameters.
  • Sponsored Links Integration
    By default, the search results can include relevant ads, providing potential revenue opportunities without additional work.
  • Multiple Sites Search
    CSE allows you to create search engines that span multiple websites or subsets of sites, enhancing the search scope as needed.

Possible disadvantages of Google Custom Search Engine

  • Advertising
    The free version of CSE displays ads alongside the search results, which could be distracting or undesirable for some users and website owners.
  • Limited Customization for Free Version
    The level of search result customization is limited unless you opt for the paid version, which may incur additional costs.
  • Dependency on Google Infrastructure
    Using CSE ties your site's search functionality to Google's infrastructure, which could be a concern for those seeking more independent or diversified solutions.
  • Privacy Concerns
    Using Google services for search means that information about users' search behavior can be collected by Google, potentially raising privacy issues.
  • Data Limitations
    The specificity and depth of data accessibility are limited compared to integrating a custom-built search engine with full database access.
  • Learning Curve
    Configuring and optimizing CSE, especially for more complex requirements, may require some learning and adjustment time from the developer's side.

OpenSearch videos

OpenSearch - What the Fork is it?

Google Custom Search Engine videos

Create a Google Custom Search Engine To Monetize Your Site

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to OpenSearch and Google Custom Search Engine)
Custom Search Engine
58 58%
42% 42
Search Engine
84 84%
16% 16
Custom Search
54 54%
46% 46
Search API
30 30%
70% 70

User comments

Share your experience with using OpenSearch and Google Custom Search Engine. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

OpenSearch might be a bit more popular than Google Custom Search Engine. We know about 26 links to it since March 2021 and only 22 links to Google Custom Search Engine. 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.

OpenSearch mentions (26)

  • Why You Shouldn’t Invest In Vector Databases?
    In fact, even in the absence of these commercial databases, users can effortlessly install PostgreSQL and leverage its built-in pgvector functionality for vector search. PostgreSQL stands as the benchmark in the realm of open-source databases, offering comprehensive support across various domains of database management. It excels in transaction processing (e.g., CockroachDB), online analytics (e.g., DuckDB),... - Source: dev.to / 13 days ago
  • 🦿🛴Smarcity garbage reporting automation w/ ollama
    Consume data into third party software (then let Open Search or Apache Spark or Apache Pinot) for analysis/datascience, GIS systems (so you can put reports on a map) or any ticket management system. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Tutorial: Modifying Grafana's Source Code
    As you can see the visualisation performs rather well with InfluxDB except for one button which appears to be disabled:** Logs for this span**. This button is automatically disabled when our trace data source (in this case, Jaeger with InfluxDB 3.0 acting as the gRPC storage engine) has not been configured with a log data source. A log data source within Grafana is usually represented by default using the log... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agents
    Interesting work with the representation of the Content through the URL, to allow the agent/actor to discover the information through different path. ↓ [...] - CSS(--variable) - DOM(attributes=value) - FORM(input[name]) - URL(path?param#resource) - HTTP(?params{body}) - SCRIPT(--attribute) - DB(model?filters) - FS(folder/filer/{content}) [...] ↑ - https://www.w3.org/OWL/ maybe to harmonize the... - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Ingesting Data into OpenSearch using Apache Kafka and Go
    Scalable data ingestion is a key aspect for a large-scale distributed search and analytics engine like OpenSearch. One of the ways to build a real-time data ingestion pipeline is to use Apache Kafka. It's an open-source event streaming platform used to handle high data volume (and velocity) and integrates with a variety of sources including relational and NoSQL databases. For example, one of the canonical use... - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
View more

Google Custom Search Engine mentions (22)

  • Website Search Hurts My Feelings
    There are actually plenty of non-ES products that are way easier to integrate and tune (and get better results with less effort). - Typesense (https://github.com/typesense/typesense). - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • How To De-index Your Docs From Google (And Then Fix It)
    One other important detail — there is an in-site search for the C7 docs. Notably, it is built on a programmable Google search engine. Basically, that means that the search functionality on the site is powered by Google. A search query entered into the C7 docs search box gives basically the same results as entering the query on google.com and filtering by site:docs.camunda.org. Again, "foreshadowing....". - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Swirl: An open-source search engine with LLMs and ChatGPT to provide all the answers you need 🌌
    Using the Galaxy UI, knowledge workers can systematically review the best results from all configured services including Apache Solr, ChatGPT, Elastic, OpenSearch, PostgreSQL, Google BigQuery, plus generic HTTP/GET/POST with configurations for premium services like Google's Programmable Search Engine, Miro and Northern Light Research. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Mullvad Leta
    We used this for a project: https://programmablesearchengine.google.com/about/ before we moved to Elastic Search. It has a REST API (and can be used to query the internet also). - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Tutorial: Create an AI agent that reads Wikipedia for you
    First, you need to create a programmable search engine for Wikipedia. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

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

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.

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

Swiftype - The simplest way to add search to your website or application. Sign up for free.

Apache Solr - Solr is an open source enterprise search server based on Lucene search library, with XML/HTTP and...

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