Why teams move from self-hosted to Cloud
Same engine you already know, without the over-provisioning, the version drift, or the missing features.
Right-size your infrastructure
Self-hosted Meilisearch instances typically run at under 10% CPU utilization. Cloud scales in one click, so you pay for what you use, burst on spikes, and scale back down when traffic settles.
Always on the latest version
Most self-hosted instances are six months or more behind on releases. Cloud upgrades with one click and zero downtime, so you ship every performance and AI improvement the day it lands.
Unlock Cloud-only features
Search analytics, AI conversational search, multi-tenant tokens, network rules, sharding, and more, without standing up infrastructure for each one.
Self-hosted vs Cloud vs Enterprise
What you get with each tier of Meilisearch.
| Feature | Self-hostedOpen source | CloudSelf-serve | EnterpriseCustom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search & relevance | |||
| Full-text, typo tolerance, faceting, geo | Included | Included | Included |
| Hybrid search (keyword + semantic) | Included | Included | Included |
| AI conversational search & chat | Not included | Included | Included |
| Personalization | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Dynamic ranking & merchandising rules | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Cloud platform | |||
| Search Preview | Not included | Included | Included |
| Chat Preview | Not included | Included | Included |
| Analytics | Not included | Included | Included |
| Monitoring & alerting | Not included | Included | Included |
| Crawler | Not included | Included | Included |
| Search & indexing performance insights | Not included | Included | Included |
| Operations | |||
| Engine upgrades | Manual | One-click, zero downtime | One-click, zero downtime |
| Automatic backups | Not included | Included | Included |
| Auto-scaling | Not included | Included | Included |
| Multi-region deployment | Not included | Included | Included |
| Sharding & replication | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Prometheus metrics export | Included | Included | Included |
| Security & compliance | |||
| API keys & tenant tokens | Included | Included | Included |
| SOC 2 Type II | Not included | Included | Included |
| SSO (SAML / OIDC) | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Uptime SLA | Not included | 99.9% | Up to 99.999% |
| Support | |||
| Community (Discord, GitHub) | Included | Included | Included |
| Email support | Not included | Included | Included |
| Dedicated Slack & response-time SLA | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Pricing | |||
| Starting price | Free (infra costs) | $20 / month | Contact Sales |
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
No. Meilisearch Cloud runs the same open-source engine, so the REST API, SDKs, and queries you already use work without modification. You only need to point your client at the new host URL and API key.
You spin up a Cloud project, import a snapshot or re-index from your source of truth, and switch the host URL when you are ready. The Cloud project runs alongside your self-hosted instance during the cutover, so there is no required downtime. Detailed step-by-step instructions are in the official migration guide on docs.meilisearch.com, and our team is available to help plan a production cutover if needed.
When a new Meilisearch release is available, you upgrade your project with one click from the Cloud dashboard. The upgrade is performed with zero downtime, so search keeps serving traffic while the new version rolls out. You stay on whichever version you want until you decide to upgrade.
Yes. Meilisearch Cloud lets you export a snapshot of your project at any time and restore it on a self-hosted instance. The engine is identical, so your data and configuration move cleanly in either direction.
Cloud auto-scales the resources allocated to your project when traffic increases and scales back down when it settles, so you only pay for what you actually use. On self-hosted, you typically provision for peak load and leave most of that capacity idle the rest of the time.
Cloud (self-serve) covers most teams: managed infrastructure, automatic backups, analytics, hybrid and AI search, one-click upgrades, and email support. Enterprise adds dedicated resources, sharding, SSO, audit logs, custom SLAs up to 99.999%, advanced features like personalization and dynamic ranking, and a dedicated Slack channel with our team.