Boost Your App with Meilisearch: Fast, Lightweight Search Engine Tutorial

Introduction

Meilisearch is a lightweight search engine that provides a RESTful search API and has already earned over 50k stars on GitHub. Its goal is to deliver a fast and precise search experience for every user.

Fast search: results in under 50 ms

Instant search: results appear as you type

Smart typo‑tolerance

Comprehensive language support, especially Chinese

Highly customizable search and indexing

RESTful API support

SDKs for Java, JavaScript, Go, Python and more

Below is a screenshot showing Meilisearch’s instant search speed.

Installation

Deploy Meilisearch conveniently with Docker.

docker pull getmeili/meilisearch:v1.13

docker run -p 7700:7700 --name meilisearch \
  -e MEILI_ENV='development' \
  -v /mydata/meiliData:/meili_data \
  -d getmeili/meilisearch:v1.13

After the container starts, access the Mini Dashboard at http://192.168.3.101:7700.

Index Operations

Indexes in Meilisearch are analogous to tables in MySQL.

Download the official demo dataset from Meilisearch’s documentation.

Upload the dataset to your server and import it with curl.

curl \
  -X POST \
  '{{MEILISEARCH_URL}}/indexes/movies/documents?primaryKey=id' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-binary @movies.json

After importing, you can search for a term such as Transformers in the Mini Dashboard.

List all indexes with: curl -X GET '{{MEILISEARCH_URL}}/indexes' Delete an index with:

curl -X DELETE '{{MEILISEARCH_URL}}/indexes/movies'

Settings Operations

Settings define search behavior, similar to a table schema.

Retrieve current settings:

curl -X GET '{{MEILISEARCH_URL}}/indexes/movies/settings'

Make title and release_date sortable, and genres and release_date filterable:

curl -X PATCH '{{MEILISEARCH_URL}}/indexes/movies/settings' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-binary '{
    "sortableAttributes": ["title","release_date"],
    "filterableAttributes": ["genres","release_date"]
  }'

Document Operations

Documents are analogous to rows in a database table.

Add a document:

curl -X POST '{{MEILISEARCH_URL}}/indexes/movies/documents' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-binary '{
    "id": 1,
    "title": "Transformers Test",
    "overview": "Young teenager, Sam Witwicky becomes involved in the ancient struggle between two extraterrestrial factions of transforming robots...",
    "genres": ["Adventure","Science Fiction","Action"],
    "poster": "https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w500/6eehp9I54syN3x753XMqjKz8M3F.jpg",
    "release_date": 1182902400
  }'

Retrieve a document:

curl -X GET '{{MEILISEARCH_URL}}/indexes/movies/documents/1'

Update a document:

curl -X PUT '{{MEILISEARCH_URL}}/indexes/movies/documents' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-binary '[{"id":1,"title":"Transformers Update"}]'

Delete a document:

curl -X DELETE '{{MEILISEARCH_URL}}/indexes/movies/documents/1'

Data Search

Search data using Meilisearch’s API.

Simple search:

curl -X POST '{{MEILISEARCH_URL}}/indexes/movies/search' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-binary '{ "q": "Transformers" }'

Paginated search:

curl -X POST '{{MEILISEARCH_URL}}/indexes/movies/search' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-binary '{ "q": "Transformers","offset": 0,"limit": 5 }'

Sorted search:

curl -X POST '{{MEILISEARCH_URL}}/indexes/movies/search' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-binary '{ "q": "Transformers","offset": 0,"limit": 5,"sort": ["release_date:desc"]}'

Filtered search:

curl -X POST '{{MEILISEARCH_URL}}/indexes/movies/search' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data-binary '{ "q": "Transformers","offset": 0,"limit": 5,"sort": ["release_date:desc"],"filter":"genres = Action OR genres = Adventure"}'

Conclusion

Meilisearch provides a low‑configuration, high‑performance alternative to Elasticsearch, delivering instant search results with minimal setup. Give it a try to experience fast, accurate search in your applications.