Search APIs · Comparison
Algolia vs Elastic Cloud
2 products compared side by side: what you pay for with each one first, then the five access facts, entry prices, recorded plan limits and the bottom line of each review. The evidence note under the table says how each product was checked.
Side by side
| Metric | Algolia | Elastic Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Saves engineering timeHosted search with no cluster to size: pay per search request and record, starting from a permanent free plan. | Saves engineering timeManaged Elasticsearch with vector, semantic and hybrid search from $0.0282 an hour, with SOC 2, ISO 27001 and a HIPAA BAA on every tier. |
| Overall score | 5.8 | 8.0Best |
| Free option | Free plan | 14-day free trial |
| Card to start | No card needed | No card needed |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $0.50/1k searches | $0.0282/hour |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Usage-based |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing units | Search requests and records | RAM-hours, data transfer and snapshot storage (Hosted); compute units and storage (Serverless) |
| Free option | Free plan: 10,000 searches and 50,000 records/mo, no card | 14-day trial, no card |
| 100,000 records, 500,000 searches/mo | $245 (Grow, listed rates) | $20.59 (Hosted, 1 GB, one zone); $41.17 in two zones |
| Vector or hybrid search | NeuralSearch on Elevate (annual contract) | Every level; semantic models and reranking on Serverless and higher Hosted levels |
| SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 | Both | Both |
| HIPAA BAA | Not stated | Every subscription tier |
| EU hosting | Yes, EU West and UK on every plan | Yes, incl. Frankfurt and Ireland on AWS, Azure and GCP |
| SAML SSO | Elevate (annual contract) | Serverless, no extra cost; Hosted on Enterprise |
| Open-source engine | No | Yes, AGPLv3 option (also SSPL and Elastic License) |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, Algolia is the simplest to price for small volumes and the only one here with a permanent free plan. Per-request billing makes it the most expensive at our 500,000-search scenario. | From its public pages, Elastic Cloud offers the most AI search and compliance here on self-serve terms and the lowest Hosted price at our scenario. Pricing has more settings than the others, and SSO and some AI features depend on the Hosted level or on using Serverless. |
Evidence: Algolia: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Elastic Cloud: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
When to pick each
In the words of each review, with the date its facts were checked.
From our Elastic Cloud review
Checked Oct 15, 2026- Pick Elastic Cloud when
- You expect many searches for little data and want vector search and SSO without an annual contract.
- Pick Algolia when
- You want nothing to size and a permanent free plan.
Entry price
Baseline: each product's cheapest paid plan, per month. Included usage differs, so read the line under each price.
- AlgoliaGrow$0.50/1k searches10,000 search requests and 100,000 records included; then $0.50 per 1,000 requests and $0.40 per 1,000 records
- Billed monthly, no contract
- Keyword search, query suggestions, manual synonyms
- Rules: 10 per index
- 30-day analytics retention
- Elastic CloudHosted Standard$0.0282/GB RAM-hourGeneral purpose (ARM), AWS us-east-1; 1 GB in one zone is $20.59/mo
- Kibana and Integrations Server at 1 GB shown as free
- Data transfer: 100 GB/mo free, then $0.05/GB out
- Vector data storage and retrieval
- Limited support, web-based
Prices as listed on each pricing page, in USD per month, excluding tax. Observed: Algolia 2026-10-15, Elastic Cloud 2026-10-15.
Which one fits
- If you need to start today without a sales call
- Elastic CloudSelf-serve sign-up, no card needed; the highest score of the 2 self-serve products here (8.0/10).
- If you want to try it without entering a card
- AlgoliaFree plan, no card needed; scored 5.8/10.
- Highest overall score
- Elastic Cloud8.0/10 (Excellent). The review shows the score breakdown and the run behind it.
Picked by fixed rules from the table above, not by hand. How we score
Full reviews
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