Sync MySQL to Elasticsearch in Minutes with DBSyncer and Docker

Introduction

DBSyncer is an open‑source visual data‑synchronization tool that supports MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, Kafka, files and other scenarios. It has more than 3.1k stars on Gitee.

Features

Combination driver: custom source‑to‑target sync, e.g., MySQL → ES.

Real‑time monitoring: full and incremental sync with status, result, sync logs and system logs.

Plugin development: write code to customize transformation logic.

Installation

Docker provides the easiest way to run DBSyncer.

docker pull registry.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com/xhtb/dbsyncer:latest

docker run -p 18686:18686 --name=db-syncer \
-e "TZ=Asia/Shanghai" \
-v /mydata/db-syncer/data:/app/dbsyncer/data \
-v /mydata/db-syncer/plugins:/app/dbsyncer/plugins \
-d registry.cn-hangzhou.aliyuncs.com/xhtb/dbsyncer:latest

After the container starts, the web console is available at http://<host>:18686 with default credentials admin:admin.

Usage Example: Sync MySQL product table to Elasticsearch

This example demonstrates syncing a simplified product table from a development database to a test database and then to an ES index.

Create two MySQL databases mall_dev and mall_test. Add both connections in DBSyncer, then create a driver that maps the source to the target.

Define the field mapping (select all fields for a full sync) and start the driver.

MySQL → Elasticsearch

First create the ES index mapping:

PUT /product_index
{
  "mappings": {
    "properties": {
      "id": {"type": "long"},
      "title": {"type": "text"},
      "sub_title": {"type": "text"},
      "pic": {"type": "text"},
      "price": {"type": "double"}
    }
  }
}

Add the ES connection in DBSyncer (password optional) and create a driver from MySQL to ES, ensuring the primary key is configured.

Start the driver; upon successful sync the data appears in Elasticsearch and can be queried via Kibana.

Conclusion

DBSyncer provides a visual interface for full‑ and incremental data synchronization between databases and search engines, with extensibility through plugins.