There are two problems. Number one, it's a bit pricey, especially when there are similar algorithms. There's one called Typesense, which we considered to lower our bill. Algolia is good for a startup because it allows you to bootstrap powerful functionalities quickly. But if that startup ends up growing and becomes quite successful, the cost of Algolia will balloon with it. So, I could imagine that Algolia might have difficulty retaining clients. The other problem I had to deal with as the lead software engineer is the documentation. I was basically assigned a guy who had no idea how Algolia works, and I had to get it to work, which I did. But the documentation for the service is not as good as it could be. You can still figure it out, but Algolia has a lot of functionalities, not just the search engine. They have built-in components for different UI libraries. In our case, we were using React, and they have a third-party library that you can import to use Algolia services as React components. It's great, but they have very little documentation for those kinds of third-party things. It's tough to use them if you don't explain to your potential developers how they're supposed to be used. I eventually had to call them directly and sit down with their engineers, and I realized that it's a great product, but they need to explain it better.
