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Amazon OpenSearch Service vs Elastic Search comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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 OpenSearch Service
Ranking in Search as a Service
3rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (22nd), Log Management (19th)
Elastic Search
Ranking in Search as a Service
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Indexing and Search (1st), Cloud Data Integration (5th), Vector Databases (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Search as a Service category, the mindshare of Amazon OpenSearch Service is 11.5%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Elastic Search is 17.2%, up from 16.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Search as a Service Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Elastic Search17.2%
Amazon OpenSearch Service11.5%
Other71.3%
Search as a Service
 

Featured Reviews

Md. Shahariar Hossen - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at Cefalo
Event tracking has become smoother and data analytics provide clear insights for user actions
Amazon OpenSearch Service is not providing the processing feature directly. From Amazon OpenSearch Service, we are actually maintaining the AWS SQS, the queue service, which is responsible for providing information about what data has to be modified. So using that SQS, we're actually providing it, but we're not directly using Amazon OpenSearch Service for keeping data to other data pipeline thing. So far we didn't use it for any machine learning purposes, but in future, we have plans to extend or implement this feature. Since AWS itself is secure and Amazon OpenSearch Service is a part of this entire ecosystem, it becomes much easier for security purposes. From the validation point of view, Amazon OpenSearch Service itself provides easy to communicate APIs and up-to-date documents, which is much beneficial. For example, if I'm missing anything, I can directly go and check the documentation. That is actually much easier. I would rate it as really good so far. It's much faster. For our local machine, we can also use a kind of replica of Amazon OpenSearch Service just for development purposes. That is another good feature. I would say for the encryption thing and also the user access control management, it's much faster. For some of these hashing algorithms, it also worked really well so far. To be honest, I didn't find any places where it can be improved. However, I think they could provide more abstraction. For example, still for searching, we have to write down the queries in a specific manner, such as for a specific JSON structure or in a specific way. Otherwise, they don't provide us the actual results. For at least this purpose, I think abstraction could be a bit easier or a bit improved. Other than that, right now there is the age of AI, so some kind of prompting could also work, but I'm not sure how it could be integrated. As a user, lower prices or reasonable pricing is always better. Those can be improved as well. However, it is good that most of the services including Amazon OpenSearch Service actually provide pay as you go pricing. So if there were a bit lower version or a bit less payment methodology, it might be much better.
reviewer2817942 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Logging and vector search have transformed observability and empowered reliable ai agents
Elastic Search is not specifically being used for certain purposes. I deploy Elastic Search database on the cloud and use cloud services so that nobody can attack. However, I do not use Elastic Search to resolve attack issues. The basic main purpose of Elastic Search, as of now, I feel it can do more in the AI area. Sometime I saw that when I am developing RAG and have to generate the embeddings, which I call metadata, sometimes it tries to fail. That durability or issue handling should be improved, but apart from that, I did not find anything as of now. As per my use case, whatever I am using seems pretty good. Apart from that, some definitely improvement will be there. One improvement is that it should be faster. Whenever I am searching any logs, it takes much time. For example, if I open my log in Notepad or a similar tool, I can search the text within a second. With Elastic Search, it takes a little bit of time, ten to fifteen seconds. That can be improved. Sometimes, engineers take time to assign when I create a ticket.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's actually easier to collaborate since it is already deployed in the AWS cloud itself."
"The stability of the product is good."
"Amazon OpenSearch Service has enhanced our organization's ability to store and search large amounts of data efficiently."
"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"
"AWS has now made our life easy."
"This service already sorts data like vectors. They have classified the storage pre-defined."
"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 business analytics capabilities are the most important feature it provides."
"The ability to aggregate log and machine data into a searchable index reduces time to identify and isolate issues for an application. Saves time in triage and incident response by eliminating manual steps to access and parse logs on separate systems, within large infrastructure footprints."
"The most valuable features are its user-friendly interface and seamless navigation."
"I find the solution to be fast."
"ELK being an open source certainly provided a platform for our organization to get involved."
"ELK Elasticsearch is a product that I recommend."
"I really like the visualization that you can do within it; that's really handy, and product-wise, it is a very good and stable product."
"We chose Elasticsearch because we could build a model in a short amount of time, allowing us to build a whole setup in one month and get 93% accuracy, with complex AI-based features built in a shorter span and with high accuracy that wasn't possible with other search enterprise vendors we used."
"All the quality features are there. There are about 60 to 70 reports available."
 

Cons

"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."
"They can enhance data visualization."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing aspect is a concern. The service is way too costly. For the past month, I used only 30 to 40 MB of data, and the cost was $500. AWS could improve pricing."
"I want to see a new feature in Amazon Elasticsearch Service that allows users to create default filters for filtered levels."
"As a user, lower prices or reasonable pricing is always better."
"Maybe Elastic Search could improve the analytics part of the search so it can be more powerful to the user."
"More AI would be beneficial. I would also appreciate more simplicity in dashboards."
"The documentation for Elastic Search can be challenging if you're not already familiar with the platform."
"Both the graph feature and the reporting feature are a little bit lacking. The alerting also needs to be improved."
"There are a few things that did not work for us. When doing a search in a bigger setup, with a huge amount of data where there are several things coming in, it has to be on top of the index that we search."
"The upgrade experience and inflexibility with fields keeps Elastic Search from being a perfect 10."
"There are challenges with performance management and scalability."
"Elastic Enterprise Search's tech support is good but it could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a community edition available and the price of the commercial offering is reasonable."
"Compared to other cloud platforms, it is manageable and not very expensive."
"You only pay for what you use."
"The solution is not expensive, but priced averagely, I will say."
"Elastic Search is open-source, but you need to pay for support, which is expensive."
"The tool is an open-source product."
"It can move from $10,000 US Dollars per year to any price based on how powerful you need the searches to be and the capacity in terms of storage and process."
"The basic license is free, but it comes with a lot of features that aren't free. With a gold license, we get active directory integration. With a platinum license, we get alerting."
"The price of Elastic Enterprise is very, very competitive."
"It can be expensive."
"I rate Elastic Search's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The solution is less expensive than Stackdriver and Grafana."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise49
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Amazon OpenSearch Service is not providing the processing feature directly. From Amazon OpenSearch Service, we are actually maintaining the AWS SQS, the queue service, which is responsible for prov...
What is your primary use case for Amazon OpenSearch Service?
Amazon OpenSearch Service is a user-friendly version of Elasticsearch, as per my understanding. I have been using it for our volunteer management system where around 5,000 to 6,000 users are using ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ELK Elasticsearch?
Elastic Search is easy to use in Azure cloud. Mostly, my full company uses Azure cloud, so it is easy to use. Cost-wise, my company found Elastic Search is good. Cost matters. Based on cost and use...
What needs improvement with ELK Elasticsearch?
The initial configuration could be easier; at first, the learning curve is a little high, and over time, it becomes easier. For me, the initial configuration might be improved.
What is your primary use case for ELK Elasticsearch?
We use Elastic Search for a research application based on paper study, and the primary usage is for indexing the data and then functioning in a similar way to an e-commerce search bar.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Elasticsearch Service
Elastic Enterprise Search, Swiftype, Elastic Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

VIDCOIN, Wyng, Yellow New Zealand, zipMoney, Cimri, Siemens, Unbabel
T-Mobile, Adobe, Booking.com, BMW, Telegraph Media Group, Cisco, Karbon, Deezer, NORBr, Labelbox, Fingerprint, Relativity, NHS Hospital, Met Office, Proximus, Go1, Mentat, Bluestone Analytics, Humanz, Hutch, Auchan, Sitecore, Linklaters, Socren, Infotrack, Pfizer, Engadget, Airbus, Grab, Vimeo, Ticketmaster, Asana, Twilio, Blizzard, Comcast, RWE and many others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon OpenSearch Service vs. Elastic Search and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.