Algolia vs ParadeDB
Algolia
algolia.com
ParadeDB
paradedb.comSide by side
| Figure | Algolia | ParadeDB |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.50/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 7 | 3 |
| Spec score · Search Databases | 9.5 (#1) | 7.8 (#20) |
| Spec score · Search Engine Software | 9.5 (#1) | 7.8 (#10) |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States | New York, New York, United States |
| Intended users | Algolia says its Free plan is intended for getting started, new projects, startups, small online stores, and exploring the service. | The documentation identifies teams outgrowing PostgreSQL full-text search or pgvector, building transactional applications that need search, or syncing Postgres to an external search engine as likely fits. |
| Search features | Its listed capabilities include NeuralSearch, AI Ranking, personalization, AI Synonyms, analytics, A/B testing, merchandising, crawler, autocomplete, and query categorization. | Its documented query capabilities include BM25 full-text search, vector and hybrid search, fuzzy, phrase, proximity and regex queries, filtering, sorting, and highlighting. |
| Support | Algolia describes support levels ranging from community access to 24/7 enterprise-grade response times; professional services are optional. | The company lists community support for Community and dedicated support with an SLA for Enterprise, and provides product support by email. |
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
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.
ParadeDB
ParadeDB adds full-text and vector search, filters, facets, and joins to PostgreSQL through the pg_search extension. It runs inside standard Postgres without a fork or sidecar process. Documented queries include BM25 full-text, vector and hybrid search, fuzzy, phrase, proximity, and regex searches, with filtering, sorting, and highlighting. Indexing covers columnar, vector, JSON, array, and composite data, alongside aggregates, facets, and joins. ParadeDB documents ACID transactions and consistent reads, with index updates applied alongside application-data writes. Deployment options include ParadeDB Cloud, BYOC, Kubernetes with CloudNativePG, self-hosted PostgreSQL, and listed PaaS providers. Local installation is documented through a curl installer, Docker, and Postgres.app, whose steps assume PostgreSQL 18. Community is AGPL-3.0 open source and supports single-node deployments; read replicas and high availability are Enterprise features. Community costs nothing, fully free forever. Cloud is in private preview with pricing not stated, while Enterprise uses custom pricing.