Algolia vs Cloudinary
Algolia
algolia.comCloudinary
cloudinary.comSide by side
| Figure | Algolia | Cloudinary |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.50/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 7 | 4 |
| Spec score · Visual Search Software | 9.4 (#1) | 8.8 (#2) |
| Founded | 2012 | 2012 |
| Integrations | Prebuilt integrations include Shopify, Adobe Commerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud B2C and commercetools, plus Segment and Google Tag Manager connectors. | The integrations directory lists connections including Contentful, AWS, Google Cloud, Shopify, Figma, WordPress, and Zapier. |
| Intended users | Algolia says its Free plan is intended for getting started, new projects, startups, small online stores, and exploring the service. | Cloudinary describes its users as developers, teams, brands, and enterprises managing visual media and digital asset workflows. |
| Support | Algolia describes support levels ranging from community access to 24/7 enterprise-grade response times; professional services are optional. | The Free plan includes support through forums, tickets, and email, while Plus lists expedited support. |
Plans
Algolia
- GrowPriced on request
- Grow PlusPriced on request
- ElevatePriced on request
- FreeFree
- Grow$0.50 a month
- Grow Plus$1.75 a month
- ElevatePrice not published
Cloudinary
- FreeFree
- PlusPrice not published
- Advanced$224 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
Algolia
Algolia is an API-first search solution that combines keyword and semantic methods to return results. Its listed capabilities include NeuralSearch, AI Ranking, personalization, AI Synonyms, analytics, A/B testing, merchandising, a crawler, autocomplete, and query categorization. It is presented for site, ecommerce, and enterprise search across retail, manufacturing, media, financial services, and other use cases. Listed integrations include Adobe, BigCommerce, commercetools, Supabase, Shopify, Salesforce, Segment, and Google Tag Manager. Developers can use InstantSearch libraries for JavaScript, React, Vue, Angular, iOS, and Android, alongside API clients for multiple programming languages. Algolia reports an average search response time under 20 milliseconds and more than 1 billion queries processed every 5 seconds. The Free plan costs nothing and includes 10K search requests/month, 50K records, and allowances for recommendation requests and crawls. It has a 1 GB index size and a 20-index maximum per application. Grow and Grow Plus list 100 GB index size and 50 indices; hosting locations vary by plan.
Cloudinary
Cloudinary is a media platform for managing images and video through APIs, from ingestion and storage to moderation, search, transformation and delivery. It also supports workflow automation and digital asset management through Cloudinary Assets, which uses AI agents to organize, find and moderate assets. Listed media tools include image and video transformations, video transcoding, adaptive streaming, CDN delivery, smart crop, intelligent optimization, AI vision, generative fill and restore, background replacement and image generation.
The Free plan is billed forever at free and includes three users, one account and 25 monthly credits. It also includes an upload widget, API, search and MCP server access. The stated limits are 20 MB per file and 225 GB of bandwidth. Plus is listed at $89 per month (yearly) or $99 per month (monthly); Advanced is $224 per month (yearly) or $249 per month (monthly). Enterprise pricing is custom. Platforms are API, extension and web.