Algolia
Ranked 10 of 12 search APIs by recommenders
Hosted search API that developers use to add fast search without running their own infrastructure. Critics warn that per-search pricing scales with usage and that rate limits can be restrictive.
Hosted search API that developers use to add fast search without running their own infrastructure. Critics warn that per-search pricing scales with usage and that rate limits can be restrictive.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 8
- approval share
- 43%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Widely seen as great search
“Tools like Algolia are great, but at $0.50 per 1,000 searches, costs scale linearly with usage”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “A 54KB client-side HNSW vector search engine in WASM” “Can't imagine doing better than them.”
Comment from 15 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: Could you share your personal website here?” “AgoliaSearch does a quite decent job”
Comment from 10 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: What Is Hacker News Working On?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Admin keys too easy to misuse
“if it's easy to dangerously use one's product that reflect poorly on the product”
Comment from 14 Mar 2026 in “I Found 39 Algolia Admin Keys Exposed Across Open Source Documentation Sites” “Algolia really needs to make using the admin key less easy.”
Comment from 14 Mar 2026 in “I Found 39 Algolia Admin Keys Exposed Across Open Source Documentation Sites” “perhaps Algolia should improve their stuff to prevent this”
Comment from 14 Mar 2026 in “I Found 39 Algolia Admin Keys Exposed Across Open Source Documentation Sites” - Comment from 14 Mar 2026 in “I Found 39 Algolia Admin Keys Exposed Across Open Source Documentation Sites”
Rate limits restrict usage
“Found the 10_000 requests per ip per hour to be really restricting.”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “See how many words you have written in Hacker News comments” “I tried Algolia but hit the limit.”
Comment from 10 Apr 2026 in “Moving from WordPress to Jekyll (and static site generators in general)”
Other search APIs people recommend
The four most recommended other search APIs, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exa | 33 | 9 | 79% | 10 | — | Approved |
| SerpApi | 16 | 10 | 62% | 8 | — | — |
| Brave Search API | 15 | 3 | 83% | 7 | — | Approved |
| DeepSeek search API | 15 | 7 | 68% | 1 | — | — |
| AlgoliaThis page | 6 | 8 | 43% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
13 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I always found their search a bit frustrating compared to a first-party one.”
“I tried Algolia but hit the limit.”
“Tools like Algolia are great, but at $0.50 per 1,000 searches, costs scale linearly with usage”
“they were only giving admin keys”
“Algolia really needs to make using the admin key less easy.”
“if it's easy to dangerously use one's product that reflect poorly on the product”
“perhaps Algolia should improve their stuff to prevent this”
“algolia just not responding”
“Found the 10_000 requests per ip per hour to be really restricting.”
“I first wanted to try out algolia but then later, I found out about clickhouse”
“Can't imagine doing better than them.”
“using an existing search tool (rather than setting up a dedicated vector db) could save a lot of time/hassle”
“AgoliaSearch does a quite decent job”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.