Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Sphinx (search engine) VS Meilisearch

Compare Sphinx (search engine) VS Meilisearch and see what are their differences

Sphinx (search engine) logo Sphinx (search engine)

Sphinx is a fulltext FLOSS search engine that provides text search functionality to client applications. Sphinx (search engine) - WikiMili, The Free Encyclopedia - WikiMili, The Free Encyclopedia

Meilisearch logo Meilisearch

Ultra relevant, instant, and typo-tolerant full-text search API
  • Sphinx (search engine) Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-30
  • 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.

Sphinx (search engine) features and specs

  • High Performance
    Sphinx is known for its high speed and efficiency in performing full-text searches, making it suitable for applications with large volumes of data.
  • Scalability
    It can scale well with the increase in data size and query load, making it a good choice for growing businesses.
  • Flexibility
    Sphinx offers flexibility in terms of configuration and customization, allowing users to tailor the search engine to their specific needs.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source search engine, Sphinx allows users to modify and adapt the software according to their project requirements without licensing fees.

Possible disadvantages of Sphinx (search engine)

  • Complex Setup
    The initial setup and configuration of Sphinx can be complex and may require significant time and technical expertise, which could be challenging for beginners.
  • Limited Community Support
    Compared to more popular search engines like Elasticsearch, Sphinx has a smaller community, potentially leading to fewer resources and support options available online.
  • Documentation
    While there is documentation available, it might not be as extensive or up-to-date as other search engines, creating potential hurdles for users trying to implement or troubleshoot issues.
  • Feature Set
    Sphinx might lack some of the advanced features and integrations offered by newer, more comprehensive search engines, which could limit its applicability for certain complex requirements.

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.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Sphinx (search engine) and Meilisearch)
Custom Search Engine
25 25%
75% 75
Custom Search
29 29%
71% 71
Search Engine
20 20%
80% 80
Search API
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 Sphinx (search engine) and Meilisearch

Sphinx (search engine) Reviews

We have no reviews of Sphinx (search engine) yet.
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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" ;)

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Meilisearch seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 4 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.

Sphinx (search engine) mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Sphinx (search engine) yet. Tracking of Sphinx (search engine) recommendations started around May 2021.

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 / 4 months ago
  • Show HN: Hyvor Blogs – Multi-language blogging platform
    Meilisearch [https://meilisearch.com] for the search index. - Source: Hacker News / almost 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

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Sphinx (search engine) and Meilisearch, you can also consider the following products

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

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.

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

Manticore search - https://www.

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