The Many Search Engines that Drupal CMS Supports
Let’s face it — nearly every website you use needs search capabilities. Whether on the frontend for client-facing solutions to surface the most relevant content or on the backend to help manage thousands of pages or items of data, the ability to search your application is a critical requirement for just about everyone.
Drupal can quickly help open up search-based needs via the Search API module. The Search API module provides a common framework for developers to build on and implement connectors for search backends of all kinds. This allows Drupal to use a search provider your organization may prefer instead of being locked into a single option.
Here’s a rundown on the seven most popular connectors for well-known search backends.
Database Search (SQL-based)
If you’re running a small Drupal site and don’t want to mess with external search services, the built-in database search works just fine — until it doesn’t. Drupal’s Search API lets you query MySQL or PostgreSQL directly, which means zero extra infrastructure and no additional setup beyond enabling the module. The main tradeoff is performance. When you start dealing with large datasets, faceted filtering, or full-text searches across thousands of nodes, database search becomes a bottleneck. It also lacks advanced search features like stemming, synonyms, and fuzzy matching. Ultimately, database search is great for simple sites but an expanding business can quickly outgrow it.
SQL cannot intelligently discern and score items based on relevancy, boosting, faceting, or user-based data (cookies, session) in its indexing and querying functionality, which the following engines excel at. However, if you are on a budget, it will get the job done. This connector comes with the Search API module out of the box; all you need to do is enable and configure it.
Solr
Apache Solr has been the gold standard for Drupal search for years, and for good reason. It scales well, handles massive datasets, and provides advanced search capabilities like faceting, relevancy tuning, and stemming. It’s also battle-tested — Drupal.org itself has been running Solr for ages. You’ll need a dedicated Solr server (or a hosted solution like SearchStax or SolrCloud) and tuning it for optimal performance requires some knowledge of schema configurations and query handling. If you’re running a substantial content-heavy site, an enterprise portal, or a high-volume eCommerce store, Solr is a solid, well-supported choice.
Fortunately, many popular Drupal hosting providers like Acquia, Pantheon, and Platform.sh provide easy integration and Solr index hosting. The Search API Solr module ships with all the configuration sets one would need to make it work without creating them from the ground up, enabling you to get connected quickly. All you need are the credentials to connect to the Solr instance. The rest is handled for you via the connector module.
Most of our projects lean on Solr to deliver great user-facing searches, whether on a site’s backend or frontend.
Elasticsearch
Built for distributed environments, Elasticsearch is designed to handle real-time search at scale, which is why it’s a favorite for large applications and data-heavy use cases. It has powerful analytics, built-in filtering, and flexible indexing, making it a go-to for complex queries. That said, it’s more resource-intensive than Solr. If you need real-time indexing, extensive filtering, and search analytics — and you don’t mind managing the infrastructure, Elasticsearch can be a great option. If you host on Acquia or Pantheon, note that Elasticsearch instances aren’t provided, and you would have to acquire the infrastructure for it on your own. Like with Solr, the Elasticsearch Connector module for Search API helps you get up and running quickly.
Typesense
If you want a lightweight, no-fuss search engine that’s blazing fast, Typesense is worth a look. Typesense is designed for speed, with instant search responses and built-in typo tolerance right out of the box. Unlike Solr or Elasticsearch, it doesn’t require heavy infrastructure — just spin up a small server, and you’re good to go. You can also opt for Typesense-hosted cloud instances. However, the tradeoff of Typesense is that it’s not as feature-rich. You won’t get deep analytics, distributed clustering, or the same level of query customization as the bigger players. If you need a fast, developer-friendly search engine for something like an eCommerce site, directory, or real-time autocomplete, Typesense is an excellent alternative with a robust API. The Search API TypeSense module just had a recent release for Drupal 11, bringing it up to date with the latest additions the Drupal framework and Typesense API. You can even take it for a test drive locally with DDEV using the Typesense DDEV add-on I authored. You can find that here: https://github.com/kevinquillen/ddev-typesense.
MeiliSearch
Newcomer MeiliSearch is another modern, ultra-fast search engine that delivers a great user experience. Like Typesense, it offers typo tolerance, search ranking customization, and real-time indexing without the complexity of Solr or Elasticsearch. It’s easy to set up, lightweight, and great for front-end-driven search experiences. However, MeiliSearch is not designed for massive datasets or enterprise-scale applications — it’s more suited for sites that need instant, user-friendly search without the headache of managing a heavyweight search cluster. If you’re looking for a plug-and-play alternative to Algolia without the SaaS pricing, MeiliSearch is a solid choice.
MeiliSearch is constantly being developed and gets better with each release, so this is one to keep an eye on. The Search API MeiliSearch module can be found here, and, like with Typesense, we built a DDEV add-on so you can run a local instance of MeiliSearch to develop against and preview it in Drupal: https://github.com/kevinquillen/ddev-meilisearch.
Coveo
Coveo is a cloud-powered search platform that brings AI-driven relevance and machine learning to Drupal. Unlike traditional search solutions that rely on static keyword matching, Coveo continuously refines results based on user behavior, personalization, and context. It’s built for enterprises that need advanced capabilities like federated search, which lets you pull content from multiple sources beyond Drupal — think external databases, CRMs, and support portals.
The managed infrastructure means you won’t be worrying about Solr clusters or Elasticsearch tuning, but that convenience comes at a price. If you’re running a large-scale Drupal implementation where search is mission-critical — like an enterprise knowledge base or a high-volume customer support site — Coveo delivers AI-powered precision that standard search backends can’t match.
Like the others, the Search API Coveo module adds ease of connectivity and integration with Drupal.
Algolia
If speed is the name of the game, Algolia is a real contender. Designed for instant search experiences, Algolia gives Drupal the kind of lightning-fast results and typo-tolerant queries you’d expect from a modern eCommerce site or content-heavy application. It’s a fully managed SaaS, so you’re not fiddling with server configs or index maintenance — push your data to Algolia, and it handles the rest. The ranking engine is highly customizable, allowing you to finetune search relevance with minimal effort. That said, pricing is usage-based, which means costs can scale quickly if you’re dealing with high traffic or frequent indexing. For sites that need ultra-responsive, front-end-friendly search — whether it’s a product catalog, media archive, or API documentation — Algolia’s speed and ease of use make it a top-tier choice for organizations of all types.
Coveo and Algolia provide high-performance, cloud-based search solutions with AI-driven relevance and personalization, making them ideal for enterprises and eCommerce platforms needing more than just a basic search experience. Algolia excels in delivering lightning-fast, user-friendly searches with real-time indexing.
Regardless of your choice, Drupal can more than meet your search needs for websites of any type and connect to modern popular search provider backends using Search API.
Vector Storage and AI Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
Coveo comes with some AI-integrated features out of the box. Solr, Algolia, MeiliSearch, and Typesense support vector-based storage, meaning your developers can easily integrate and write code to convert text to vectors for AI search needs. MySQL version 9 is planning support for a vector storage type. That means that while you may use a provider that doesn’t have out of the box AI features, it does not mean you can’t get them.
Work is already underway supporting both vector databases like Milvus and Pinecone, with development happening to support vector types in backends like MySQL and Solr, via the Drupal AI module.
Improve Drupal Your Site Search Experience
Velir assists brands large and small with improving the search functionality of their Drupal sites. We can help you implement a new engine and leverage AI-enhanced capabilities to truly harness the power of search on your site. Reach out to learn more about how.