ElasticSearch vs Manticore Search

Both are self-hosted search engines projects. This page compares how well each one is actually maintained — the part you cannot see from a feature list.

ElasticSearch scores 97 against Manticore Search's 86, putting it ahead on the strength of a higher commit volume. That measures project health, not feature fit — Manticore Search may still be the right choice if it does what you need.
ElasticSearchManticore Search
Health score 97/100 86/100
Commits (11 mo) 12804 1247
Commits (last 3 mo) 4443 329
Stars 78k 12k
Latest release 23 Sept 2026 11 Sept 2026
Licence SSPL-1.0 GPL-3.0
Built with Java Docker, deb, C++, K8S
Typical RAM 2 GB 1 GB

ElasticSearch

Distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine.

97/100
Thriving

High commit volume, frequent releases and growing activity.

Maintenance 40/40
Releases 25/25
Community 20/20
Momentum 12/15

Commit activity in the top 1% of tracked projects; popularity in the top 1%. How this is calculated.

Commits, last 11 months

2025-10: 893 commits 2025-11: 634 commits 2025-12: 732 commits 2026-01: 751 commits 2026-02: 931 commits 2026-03: 1350 commits 2026-04: 1695 commits 2026-05: 1375 commits 2026-06: 1416 commits 2026-07: 1675 commits 2026-08: 1352 commits

Manticore Search

Full-text search and data analytics, with fast response time for small, medium and big data (alternative to Elasticsearch).

86/100
Thriving

High commit volume, frequent releases and growing activity.

Maintenance 33/40
Releases 25/25
Community 16/20
Momentum 12/15

Commit activity more than 83% of tracked projects; popularity more than 81%. How this is calculated.

Commits, last 11 months

2025-10: 108 commits 2025-11: 196 commits 2025-12: 108 commits 2026-01: 110 commits 2026-02: 95 commits 2026-03: 123 commits 2026-04: 116 commits 2026-05: 62 commits 2026-06: 144 commits 2026-07: 92 commits 2026-08: 93 commits

How to read this

Everything above is measured, not opinion: commit counts and release dates come from the public repositories, and the health score ranks each project against all 1352 projects we track. Read the full method.

What this comparison deliberately does not do is tell you which has the better feature set. Maintenance health tells you which project will still be receiving security fixes in two years. Decide that first, then compare features on the projects that survive the filter.

See every option in this category: self-hosted search engines.