Deploy and Use Meilisearch for Lightning‑Fast Full‑Text Search

Introduction

Meilisearch is a lightweight, fast full‑text search engine that delivers sub‑50 ms response times and runs on modest hardware, offering an alternative to Elasticsearch.

Key Features

Search results returned in under 50 ms

Instant search as you type

Smart typo‑tolerance

Optimized support for Chinese and other languages

Highly customizable indexing and search behavior

RESTful HTTP API

Official SDKs for Java, JavaScript, Go, Python, and more

Installation

Deploy Meilisearch 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, the API is reachable at http://<host>:7700.

Index Operations

Import a demo dataset (e.g., movies.json) into a new index:

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

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

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

Settings Operations

Retrieve current settings for an index:

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

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 (partial update):

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'

Search Queries

Simple search:

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

Paginated search (first 5 results):

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

Sorted search (by release date descending):

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 (Action or Adventure genres):

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" }'

Repository

Official source code:

https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch