# OpenSearch

6 Hacker News commenters recommended OpenSearch and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Open-source search and analytics engine under the Apache 2.0 licence, widely chosen as the standard for search workloads. Running a managed cluster on AWS is the common caveat, with critics calling it expensive.

## Why people recommend it

- Apache 2.0 licence with active community (2 comments): "OpenSearch is a perfectly good example of Amazon maintaining an openly licensed open-source project" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49455549)) "Opensearch remains Apache 2.0 and has a thriving community at this point." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47001228))
- Standard choice for search (2 comments): "going from in house coded solutions to something proper (typically Opensearch/Elasticsearch)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45952281)) "Elasticsearch / Opensearch is the industry standard for this" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46630740))

## What people warn about

- Expensive to run as managed cluster (2 comments): "I shelved a project in March 2025 because it cost $360/month to run." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47160233)) "OpenSearch from AWS is ridiculously expensive for no reason" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45822766))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Elasticsearch](https://hackerapproved.com/p/elasticsearch.md): 68 recommend
- [Antfly](https://hackerapproved.com/p/antfly.md): 15 recommend
- [Scry](https://hackerapproved.com/p/scry.md): 11 recommend
- [Typesense](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typesense.md): 8 recommend
- [Manticore Search](https://hackerapproved.com/p/manticore-search.md): 7 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "OpenSearch", https://hackerapproved.com/p/opensearch/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).