Typesense is an open-source search engine for adding search to a website or app. It does not crawl the web; users supply the data they want to make searchable. The engine supports typo-tolerant, search-as-you-type queries designed to respond in typically under 50 milliseconds. Search features include adjustable ranking, sorting, faceting, filtering, grouping, federated search and geo search. Listed AI capabilities include vector and hybrid search, built-in RAG, natural-language, image and voice search. Typesense can run locally or on a server, or through hosted Typesense Cloud. Its REST API has integrations including Firebase, AWS Amplify, Laravel Scout, LangChain, LlamaIndex, InstantSearch, OpenAI and Google ML platforms. Cloud billing includes cluster runtime and bandwidth, and the hourly cluster charge continues while a cluster runs even without traffic. Paid Cloud clusters start at 22.00 USD per month. The free Cloud allowance is one-time only: selected configurations receive 720 hours and 10GB bandwidth, not a monthly renewal.
Who it is for
Typesense suits developers who want to add search to their own site or app and are prepared to supply the searchable data. It offers local, server-based and hosted deployment options.
What is good
- Open-source engine supports typo-tolerant search.
- Includes faceting, filtering, grouping and geo search.
- Offers vector and hybrid search capabilities.
- Can run locally, on a server or in the cloud.
- Integrates with Firebase, LangChain and OpenAI.
What to know first
- Users must supply data; it does not crawl the web.
- Free Cloud allowance does not renew monthly.
- Cluster fees continue while a cluster runs without traffic.
- Paid Cloud clusters start at 22.00 USD per month.
Verdict
Typesense combines conventional search controls with a range of AI search capabilities and lets teams choose local, server or hosted deployment. Review Cloud runtime billing and its non-renewing free allowance if you plan to use the hosted service.
Typesense plans and pricing
All plansCompared on search databases
- Free plan
- Yes
- Paid from
- $22/mo
- Primary search mode
- full-text
- Vector search
- Yes
- Faceted search
- Yes
- Deployment
- both
- Query interface
- REST
