OpenSearch
Shares rank 31 of 38 search engines by recommenders
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.
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.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 60%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 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
Apache 2.0 licence with active community
“OpenSearch is a perfectly good example of Amazon maintaining an openly licensed open-source project”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “AWS Acquires DuckLabs” “Opensearch remains Apache 2.0 and has a thriving community at this point.”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “MinIO repository is no longer maintained” Standard choice for search
“going from in house coded solutions to something proper (typically Opensearch/Elasticsearch)”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Building a Simple Search Engine That Works” “Elasticsearch / Opensearch is the industry standard for this”
Comment from 15 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: How are you doing RAG locally?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Expensive to run as managed cluster
“I shelved a project in March 2025 because it cost $360/month to run.”
Comment from 26 Feb 2026 in “RAG on a Budget: How I Replaced a $360/Month OpenSearch Cluster for $1.12/Month” “OpenSearch from AWS is ridiculously expensive for no reason”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 in “Evaluate Your Own RAG, Why Best Practices Failed Us”
Other search engines people recommend
The four most recommended other search engines, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kagi | 732 | 234 | 76% | 13 | 2 yrs106 owners | Approved |
| Google Search | 315 | 1,039 | 23% | 12 | 20 yrs25 owners | — |
| DuckDuckGo | 286 | 204 | 58% | 12 | 3.5 yrs47 owners | — |
| Hister | 81 | 9 | 90% | 9 | 2 mo17 owners | Approved |
| OpenSearchThis page | 6 | 4 | 60% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
All 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Only before it would take AWS to fork and maintain something like OpenSearch in such a situation.”
“OpenSearch is a perfectly good example of Amazon maintaining an openly licensed open-source project”
“it's more like a predatory practice to capture market”
“don't you prefer to use Opensearch which provides it for free?”
“I shelved a project in March 2025 because it cost $360/month to run.”
“Opensearch remains Apache 2.0 and has a thriving community at this point.”
“It's heavily optimized for this type of intersects/overlaps queries at scale.”
“have just gotten more and more bloated over the years”
“Elasticsearch / Opensearch is the industry standard for this”
“Valkey and OpenSearch at least existing”
“going from in house coded solutions to something proper (typically Opensearch/Elasticsearch)”
“OpenSearch from AWS is ridiculously expensive for no reason”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.