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Amazon Kendra vs Amazon OpenSearch Service comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Kendra
Ranking in Search as a Service
4th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Amazon OpenSearch Service
Ranking in Search as a Service
2nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (25th), Log Management (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Search as a Service category, the mindshare of Amazon Kendra is 11.3%, down from 21.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon OpenSearch Service is 5.4%, down from 16.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Search as a Service
 

Featured Reviews

AM
Kendra has a nice AI built-in, enhancing the search experience and highly stable solution
There are many valuable features. For example, there are many documents that contain a lot of legal information. So we want to understand whether all the documents have the required complaint-related information or not, and whether they are following the standard policies of documentation. We have multiple documents, so we don't know which document has the sought-after information. Therefore, we want to perform an enterprise search on it. So there are a lot of use cases we are trying to build using these newer technologies, specifically Kendra. Moreover, Kendra has AI, which has an upper edge, and that is really helpful. It has a nice AI inbuilt, which improves the search part of it.
Johnny Suleiman - PeerSpot reviewer
Scalability is a key feature as it allows easy scaling of the platform without downtime
OpenSearch is used as a search engine for specific logs, mainly in e-commerce and monitoring the logs themselves. It is very valuable for e-commerce, enabling data analysis on application logs and customer behavior, and can be integrated with other services, including AI and machine learning…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We have good use cases where stability is everything. So it's a stable solution."
"Provides flexibility to tune the relevance and ranking of results."
"Amazon OpenSearch Service provides a managed database solution, so we don't need to manage everything ourselves."
"The business analytics capabilities are the most important feature it provides."
"The stability of the product is good."
"The initial set up is very easy...We really appreciate Amazon!"
"Our customers have seen tangible benefits from Amazon OpenSearch Service, especially in terms of their applications running smoothly, so they do get a return on investment."
"The most valuable features of Amazon Elasticsearch are ease of use, native JSON, and efficiency. Additionally, handles many use cases and search grammar was useful."
"In case there is a failure, Elastic manages everything well, and there no major downtime."
"We retrieve historical data with just a click of a button to move it from cold to hot or warm because it's already stored in the backend storage"
 

Cons

"There are some token limits."
"The time it takes for indexing documents could be reduced."
"In terms of data handling capabilities with Amazon OpenSearch Service, they can be complex and managing data in comparison to other SIM solutions is a major drawback, as it is very hard to handle the data."
"I would say that, basically, the configuration part is an area with a shortcoming...Some upgradation is required on the configuration side so that we can get to use it."
"We faced documentation challenges during integration after migrating from Elasticsearch to Amazon OpenSearch Service. Better documentation on integration, query handling, and a more user-friendly UI could enhance the product."
"One improvement I would like to see is support for auto-scaling."
"They can enhance data visualization."
"It would be beneficial to have some level of customization available in the managed service, tailored to the specific use cases of the end users."
"Amazon Elasticsearch can improve the bullion in the near search and the ease of integration with Kibana. Additionally, there could be more flexibility in the configuration and documentation."
"One glaring issue was with our mapping configuration as the system accepted the data we posted, but after a few months, when we attempted complex queries, we realized the date formatting had become problematic."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing falls in the medium range."
"The solution is not expensive, but priced averagely, I will say."
"Compared to other cloud platforms, it is manageable and not very expensive."
"There is a community edition available and the price of the commercial offering is reasonable."
"You only pay for what you use."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Kendra?
We have good use cases where stability is everything. So it's a stable solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Kendra?
The pricing falls in the medium range. The cost depends on the size of your use case because it has a fixed cost, not a variable. The licensing is on a monthly basis. There are no extra costs. Only...
What needs improvement with Amazon Kendra?
There are some token limits. We cannot ask questions with more than 30 tokens. Access cannot be more than 200 tokens. And the token is also, like, one point. Then views are very hard limits, and it...
What do you like most about Amazon OpenSearch Service?
We retrieve historical data with just a click of a button to move it from cold to hot or warm because it's already stored in the backend storage
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon OpenSearch Service?
I would consider the pricing as a six based on how much data we are handling; if we handle minimal data, it's cheap, but for large data, it becomes costly. Our clients usually pay between $1,000 to...
What needs improvement with Amazon OpenSearch Service?
In terms of data handling capabilities with Amazon OpenSearch Service, they can be complex and managing data in comparison to other SIM solutions is a major drawback, as it is very hard to handle t...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Amazon Elasticsearch Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
VIDCOIN, Wyng, Yellow New Zealand, zipMoney, Cimri, Siemens, Unbabel
Find out what your peers are saying about Elastic, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Algolia and others in Search as a Service. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.