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I have never used a search engine before. Can I use Meilisearch anyway?

Of course! No knowledge of Elasticsearch or Solr is required to use Meilisearch. It is designed to be easy to use and accessible to all developers. The fastest way to get started is with Meilisearch Cloud, which gives you a running instance in minutes. You can also self-host Meilisearch if you prefer. We provide SDKs for many languages and frameworks to help you integrate Meilisearch into your project.

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Should I use Meilisearch Cloud or self-host?

Meilisearch Cloud is the recommended option for most users. It handles provisioning, scaling, backups, and updates automatically, and includes built-in analytics and monitoring. Self-hosting gives you full control over your infrastructure and is available under the MIT license (Community Edition). It requires managing your own servers, updates, and backups. See the Cloud quick start or self-hosting guide to get started with either option.

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How does Meilisearch compare to other search engines?

We maintain detailed comparisons with Elasticsearch, Algolia, Typesense, and others. You can also try Meilisearch with your own data — the Cloud free trial requires no credit card.

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What are Meilisearch’s limits?

Key limits include:
LimitValue
Max documents per index~4.3 billion
Max index size~80 TiB (recommended < 2 TiB)
Max attributes per document65,536
Max query terms (full-text search)10 words (configurable)
Default max results per search1,000 (configurable)
For the full list, see known limitations.

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How do I update Meilisearch?

Meilisearch Cloud instances can be updated with one click from the Cloud dashboard. For self-hosted instances, see the update guide, which covers dumpless upgrades (v1.13+) and dump-based migration for older versions.

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I keep getting a 400 - Bad Request when adding documents

This usually means your data is not in a valid format. Common causes include extraneous commas, mismatched brackets, or missing quotes. Meilisearch accepts JSON, CSV, and NDJSON formats. When adding or replacing documents, you must enclose them in an array even if there is only one document.

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I uploaded documents but get no search results

Your document upload likely failed. Check the status of the task using the returned taskUid. If the task failed, the response contains an error object: 
{
    "uid": 1,
    "indexUid": "movies",
    "status": "failed",
    "type": "documentAdditionOrUpdate",
    "canceledBy": null,
    "details": {
            "receivedDocuments": 67493,
            "indexedDocuments": 0
    },
    "error": {
        "message": "Document does not have a `:primaryKey` attribute: `:documentRepresentation`.",
        "code": "missing_document_id",
        "type": "invalid_request",
        "link": "https://www.meilisearch.com/docs/reference/errors/error_codes#missing_document_id"
    },
    "duration": "PT1S",
    "enqueuedAt": "2021-08-10T14:29:17.000000Z",
    "startedAt": "2021-08-10T14:29:18.000000Z",
    "finishedAt": "2021-08-10T14:29:19.000000Z"
}

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Is killing a Meilisearch process safe?

Yes. Killing Meilisearch is safe, even during indexing. When you restart, it resumes the task from the beginning. See the asynchronous operations guide for more details.

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Can I use Meilisearch for multi-tenant applications?

Yes. Meilisearch supports multitenancy with tenant tokens, which let you control which documents each user can search without maintaining separate indexes.

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What are the hardware requirements for self-hosting?

This depends on your dataset size, number of searchable/filterable fields, and query volume. As a starting point, provision a machine with at least ten times the disk space of your raw dataset. Key considerations:
  • RAM: Search speed depends on the ratio between RAM and database size. More RAM means faster searches.
  • Disk: More searchable/filterable fields and ranking rules increase database size.
  • CPU cores: More cores let Meilisearch handle more concurrent search queries.
For optimization tips, see RAM and multi-threading performance.
Always update index settings before adding documents. This avoids double-indexing and reduces memory spikes.

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Is there a public roadmap?

Yes. Visit the public roadmap to see planned features and ongoing work.

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Does Meilisearch collect telemetry?

Meilisearch collects anonymous usage data to understand feature usage and detect bugs. It never tracks or identifies individual users. You can read what is collected and how to opt out on the telemetry page. For privacy concerns, email privacy@meilisearch.com.