September 24, 2026·Product

Medusa Search vs. Algolia and MeiliSearch

Name: MedusaJS
Brand: Medusa

Shahed Nasser

Medusa Search is our new pre-integrated Search provider for Medusa, which comes at 50-80% lower cost than competing providers. Learn how Medusa compares to Algolia and MeiliSearch.

This week we released Medusa Search, a managed search service for Medusa Cloud projects. It stores your search indexes outside of your database and serves search queries for them.

Medusa Search is a highly performant solution yet low cost search provider (50-80% cheaper than Algolia and MeiliSearch). It is available for all Medusa Cloud plans out-of-the-box. You don't have to manage the implementation or search indexes separately. Medusa takes care of that for you so you can provide your customers with a seamless search experience.

You can see an example of how performant Medusa Search is on our Search landing page.

How Medusa Search Works

To use Medusa Search, you must be a Medusa Cloud user whose project runs on v2.21.1. If you're running on an earlier version, make sure to setup the Medusa MCP server, then send this prompt to your agent:

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Update my Medusa project to the latest version

The agent will retrieve all information necessary to update your project to the latest version and support Medusa Search.

Once you create a product search index, you can start searching your products on the Copy to clipboard/store/search API route.

Compare Medusa Search with Algolia and MeiliSearch

Medusa Search provides the essential search features that Algolia and MeiliSearch provide, with lower costs and less implementation time on your end.

	Medusa Search	Algolia	Meilisearch
Cost	10k free queries, then $20 per 100k	10k free then $50 per 100k	$30 for 50k queries, then $40 per 100k
Setup	Medusa provisions it per environment.	Create an account, an index, and keys per environment.	Run the engine yourself, or create a Meilisearch Cloud project.
Who operates it	Medusa	Algolia	You when you self-host, or Meilisearch on their cloud.
Integration code you maintain	None by default. Medusa manages the infrastructure for you.	A provider you build, and an index definition per entity you search.	A provider you build, and an index definition per entity you search.
Local development	Available through a connection string.	No local engine. Local development points at a real index.	The same engine runs locally as a binary or container.
Relevance tuning	A weight per searchable field.	Ranking rules, synonyms, and merchandising controls.	Ranking rules, synonyms, and stop words.
Vector and hybrid search	Supported on the Scale and Enterprise plans, with embeddings it can create for you on the Enterprise plan.	Supported through Algolia's own vector features.	Supported, with an embedder that can compute the embeddings.
Per-environment isolation	Medusa manages one set of indexes per environment for you.	You name and provision an index per environment.	You provision an index or an instance per environment.
Semantic Search	Hybrid search that blends text and vector results by a semantic ratio, on the Scale and Enterprise plans. You compute the embeddings, or Medusa Search creates them for you on the Enterprise plan.	Available through Algolia's AI search features, on higher plans.	Hybrid search that blends text and vector results by a semantic ratio, with an embedder that can compute the embeddings.
Storefront Integration	Compatible with InstantSearch	Compatible with InstantSearch	Compatible with InstantSearch

Check the documentation for a deeper comparison to Algolia and MeiliSearch.

Should you Migrate to Medusa Search

Medusa Search is a great solution for your search needs if your main priorities are:

Less integration maintenance: you want to spend more time shipping new features, less time maintaining integration with an external search service.
Wide range of search capabilities: Medusa Search supports facets, filters, typo tolerance, highlights, full-text search, and more.
Semantic Search: you want your customers to find products through AI agents or natural language.
Isolated search indexes between environments: Build your search experience without worrying about managing different indexes or impacting production environment.
Search Analytics: you want to track search speed, queries with no results, most searched terms, and more through a dashboard.
Lower Costs: Medusa Cloud is the lowest-priced search option on the market today for any Medusa merchant.

If you are an existing Medusa user interested in learning more about Medusa Search then feel free to reach out via the Cloud Support or through medusajs.com/contact.

Migrate from Algolia to Medusa Search

If you're currently using Algolia in your Medusa Store, we prepared a prompt for your AI agent to facilitate the migration to Medusa Search. Give your agent the following prompt to get started:

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Fetch https://docs.medusajs.com/cloud/search/migrate-from-algolia and migrate my store to use Medusa Search

You can also find the full guide in the documentation.

Migrate from MeiliSearch to Medusa Search

If you're currently using MeiliSearch in your Medusa Store, we prepared a prompt for your AI agent to facilitate the migration to Medusa Search. Give your agent the following prompt to get started:

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Fetch https://docs.medusajs.com/cloud/search/migrate-from-meilisearch and migrate my store to use Medusa Search

You can also find the full guide in the documentation.

Learn More about Medusa Search

You can find more information about Medusa Search and how it works in our documentation:

How to define indexes, including custom indexes for your custom data models.
How reindexing and migrations work.
How to integrate into your storefront with the InstantSearch Adapter.

Get Started with Medusa

If you're new to Medusa, check out the documentation, where you'll get a more in-depth understanding of what Medusa is, the commerce features it provides, and how to deploy Medusa to Cloud.

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