How Samtec modernizes product search with Meilisearch

Samtec is a global leader in electronic interconnect solutions - designing, manufacturing, and selling a vast range of high-performance connectors and cables. Engineers and procurement specialists worldwide rely on Samtec to browse and purchase highly specific technical components from an extensive product catalog. With millions of monthly searches and an extremely complex catalog, search is one of the most critical experiences on the site.

When their previous solution no longer met expectations both in performance and cost, Samtec made the decision to modernize their search stack with Meilisearch.

The challenge: search that couldn’t keep up

For years, Samtec relied on its previous search vendor to power product discovery across multiple regions. While it worked, it came with growing limitations.

• Search relevancy wasn’t good enough for engineers looking for highly specific components.
• Normalizing data across various product types was hard due to inconsistencies in product descriptions.
• Latency issues made the experience feel slower than expected.
• Limited control over ranking and tuning made it hard to prioritize results intelligently.
• High costs didn’t match the value delivered.
• Managing search across multiple regional instances added complexity.

At the same time, search behavior was evolving. Users no longer wanted to navigate through menus - they expected to type what they needed and find it instantly.

As Cody Wheeler, Software Development Manager at Samtec, explains:

“Every analytic we have shows the search bar is the hottest part of the site. People don’t want to navigate - they want to search and find answers quickly.”

With trillions of possible part combinations and complex attributes like “plating type” (e.g., whether the product is plated with gold or silver), “pitch” (the distance between pins), and “stack height” (how tall the pins are), Samtec needed a search experience that was both fast and precise. Engineers often search by technical specifications, not the product names, so the search system must support parametric filtering that lets users quickly narrow results based on these detailed criteria.

The solution: a focused, developer-first search engine

Derek Winfield, Samtec.com’s Solution Architect, evaluated several search providers before landing on Meilisearch. The decision came down to a few key criteria: ease of use, clear documentation, cost efficiency, and a clean UI alongside robust API access.

Meilisearch stood out as a dedicated solution built specifically for search:

• Developer-first experience: Clear documentation and intuitive tooling meant the team could build independently, without needing constant support.
• Instant performance: Search results returned almost instantly, a dramatic improvement over the previous solution’s latency. Indexes were also fast to build and update.
• Built-in relevancy: Typo tolerance, customizable ranking rules, and granular control over search behavior out of the box.
• Direct, responsive support: A dedicated Slack channel gave the team instant access to the Meilisearch engineering team—a stark contrast to the ticket-based support of other vendors.

Implementation: simple, fast, and low-friction

The team started with open source to validate the approach, then moved to Meilisearch Cloud in production. The rollout was phased:

• Phase 1: Content search (web pages, PDFs, videos)
• Phase 2: Product search, including deeper filtering and faceting capabilities

From proof of concept to production, the migration took a few weeks of work alongside other projects.

“It was really simple to use. We didn’t get stuck. We were able to do it all on our own.” - said Cody Wheeler.

Performance improvements were immediate. Search results now return almost instantly, even across global instances. The team at Samtec also appreciated the direct Slack integration for support, highlighting it as a significant advantage during the implementation process:

"We were given a direct Slack integration to ask questions - you don’t see that from a lot of companies. That direct access means the world to people trying to integrate a product quickly.”

The results: performance without disruption

For Cody, the biggest success indicator was simple: users didn’t even notice. In Cody’s words:

"When you roll out something new and no one complains-that’s usually a good sign. People didn’t even notice we made a major switch of the backend. That to me was a large success.”

Key outcomes since the migration:

• 1.5 million monthly searches & over 1 million indexed documents processed across four regional instances with near-instant response times.
• Improved relevancy and speed: developers described results as “very fast” and “very accurate,” with indexes that are “extremely fast to update.”
• Better cost efficiency compared to the previous solution, with plans to consolidate additional vendor costs as product search comes online.
• Self-sufficient team: documentation and ease of use meant the team rarely needed to ask for outside help during the build.

Conclusion: a search foundation built for scale

Samtec’s journey with Meilisearch is just getting started. The team is preparing to roll out full product search with faceted filtering, giving engineers the Amazon-like experience of typing a keyword and narrowing down through technical attributes. They’re also exploring how internally trained LLMs could integrate with Meilisearch to power semantic search-helping users move from vague queries to precise product matches.

With refreshed analytics capabilities implementation next in the pipeline, Samtec plans to gain deeper visibility into how users search-enabling the team to continuously refine relevancy and ensure every visitor finds exactly what they need.

By choosing a dedicated search partner that prioritizes speed, simplicity, and direct support, Samtec has built a foundation that serves today’s 1 million indexed documents, and is ready for what comes next.