Search has long surpassed the mandatory checkbox of website architecture. The technology has matured
to power all forms of discovery: navigation, recommendations and content, as well as analytics
features that translate digital experiences into data insights market leaders use to drive business KPIs.

This also means that search is a serious investment: in human resources and infrastructure cost, and in
implementation, maintenance and analyzing the return on investment. Because search technology is
critical to business performance, the right investment in search technology will save significant budget
and will avoid headaches long into the future.

With this in mind, we set out to give you an answer to one of the most common questions we get:
how does Algolia compare with Elasticsearch? Our focus here is on business value, and while we delve
into the technical side, this is not a full feature-by-feature comparison. Rather, it’s a compilation of
factors to enable you to make the right decision for your business case.