Your WordPress search is costing you conversions right now. Users who engage with site search are 2-3x more likely to convert, yet WordPress’s default search delivers results so poor that visitors either abandon their search entirely or turn to Google instead. The native search algorithm prioritizes publication date over relevance, ignores custom fields and product attributes, can’t handle typos, and treats a blog post from 2019 the same as your flagship product page.
For WordPress site owners serious about user experience and conversions, three search plugins stand above the rest in 2025: SearchWP, Relevanssi, and ElasticPress. Each takes a fundamentally different approach to solving WordPress’s search problem, and choosing the wrong one for your specific needs can mean wasted money and continued user frustration.
This comparison breaks down exactly what each plugin does, who it’s built for, and which scenarios favor each solution.
Why WordPress Default Search Fails
Before diving into solutions, understanding the problem helps clarify why these plugins exist at all.
WordPress’s native search suffers from architectural limitations that compound as sites grow. The algorithm searches only post titles, content, and basic metadata while completely ignoring custom fields, PDF documents, product attributes, and taxonomy terms. If you’re running a WooCommerce store, customers searching for “blue cotton shirt size medium” will find nothing unless those exact words appear in the product description, not the product attributes where that data actually lives.
The relevance ranking makes matters worse. WordPress sorts results by publication date, not by how well content matches the search query. A blog post from three years ago with “WordPress” in the title ranks above your comprehensive WordPress guide published last month. There’s no way to adjust this behavior without code modifications or plugins.
Additional limitations include no typo tolerance (searching “WordPres” returns nothing), no synonym support (“car” won’t find “vehicle”), no custom field indexing, and no search analytics to understand what visitors are actually looking for. For sites with 20+ post types, the search becomes nearly unusable as administrative content, system-generated objects, and backend data pollute results. Proper database optimization helps, but can’t solve fundamental search architecture limitations.
SearchWP: The WordPress-Native Powerhouse
SearchWP has become the go-to solution for WordPress site owners who want powerful search without leaving the WordPress ecosystem. Trusted by over 50,000 websites, it replaces the default search with a dedicated index optimized specifically for search operations.
How SearchWP Works
Unlike default WordPress search that queries the database directly with each search, SearchWP builds a separate, optimized index of your content. This architectural difference delivers dramatically faster search execution and enables features impossible with the native approach. The plugin indexes content you specify, including custom fields, PDF documents, WooCommerce product data, custom post types, taxonomy terms, and even content from custom database tables.
The relevance algorithm is fully customizable through an intuitive slider-based interface. You can weight post titles more heavily than body content, prioritize certain custom fields over others, and create multiple search engines with entirely different configurations for different sections of your site. A WooCommerce store might weight product titles and SKUs heavily while a knowledge base might prioritize document content and taxonomy terms.
Key Features
SearchWP’s feature set addresses virtually every default WordPress search limitation:
Custom Field Search: Full integration with Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), Meta Box, and other custom field plugins. Property listings, recipe ingredients, event details, job requirements, all searchable.
PDF and Document Search: Extracts and indexes text from PDF documents, making downloadable resources discoverable through search. White papers, case studies, manuals, and contracts become findable.
WooCommerce Integration: Indexes product attributes, variations, SKUs, reviews, and custom product fields. The Pro plan adds advanced ecommerce features including cross-site multisite search and metrics. For store owners, this pairs well with our guide on WooCommerce payment gateway setup.
Live Ajax Search: Real-time results appear as users type, providing Google-like instant search feedback. No page reload required.
Search Analytics: The Metrics extension tracks what visitors search for, which results they click, and identifies searches returning no results. This data reveals content gaps and optimization opportunities, similar to the insights you can gain from form analytics.
Keyword Stemming and Synonyms: “Running” matches “run,” and you can configure custom synonyms so “car” finds “vehicle” or “automobile.”
SearchWP Pricing (2025)
SearchWP uses annual licensing with three tiers:
- Standard ($99/year): 1 site, includes PDF search, custom field indexing, live Ajax search, and all core features
- Pro ($199/year): 3 sites, adds WooCommerce integration, search metrics, custom result ordering, multisite support, and priority support
- All Access Bundle ($399/year): Up to 100 sites, includes SearchWP Pro plus WPFilters for faceted filtering
All plans include a 14-day money-back guarantee. The introductory pricing shown represents promotional rates; renewals occur at full price.
Best For
SearchWP excels for WordPress sites with up to 20,000 posts, pages, and custom post types. It’s particularly strong for WooCommerce stores needing product attribute search, content sites with PDF libraries, and any site using Advanced Custom Fields extensively. The no-code configuration appeals to site owners who want professional search without developer involvement.
Relevanssi: The Relevance-Focused Free Option
Relevanssi has served the WordPress community for years as the leading free search improvement plugin, with over 100,000 active users. While a Premium version exists, the free plugin alone dramatically improves search quality for most sites.
How Relevanssi Works
Relevanssi intercepts WordPress search queries and applies its own relevance algorithm, sorting results by how well they match the search terms rather than by publication date. The plugin builds its own index within the WordPress database, enabling features like fuzzy matching and custom field search without requiring external services.
The approach differs from SearchWP in that Relevanssi operates within WordPress’s existing database structure rather than creating a fully separate index. This makes it lighter-weight but also means performance depends more heavily on your hosting environment and database optimization.
Key Features
Relevance-Based Sorting: The core value proposition. Results rank by how well they match the query, not when they were published.
Fuzzy Search: Handles typos and spelling variations. Searching “pizzas” finds “pizza,” and approximately 30% of searches contain mistakes that Relevanssi can accommodate.
AND/OR Query Logic: Users can choose whether all search terms must appear (AND) or only some (OR), providing flexibility default WordPress lacks.
Comment and Custom Field Search: Indexes comments, tags, categories, custom fields, and shortcode output.
Search Term Highlighting: Displays custom excerpts showing where search terms appear in results, helping users identify relevant content quickly.
“Did You Mean” Suggestions: Google-style spelling suggestions when searches return few results.
Multisite Compatible: Works with WordPress Multisite installations and bbPress forums.
Relevanssi Pricing (2025)
Relevanssi offers genuinely useful free and paid options:
- Free Version: Available from WordPress.org, includes relevance sorting, fuzzy search, custom field indexing, and most core features
- Premium Annual ($119.83/year): Unlimited sites, adds advanced features, priority support, and regular updates
- Premium Permanent ($401.42): Lifetime license with unlimited sites and perpetual updates
The Premium version adds features like search throttling, user-configurable search settings, and additional customization options. Both premium options include a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Best For
Relevanssi works well for blogs, content sites, and smaller WordPress installations where the free version provides sufficient functionality. Sites prioritizing budget over advanced features will find excellent value. The Premium version suits agencies managing multiple client sites who benefit from the unlimited site license.
Limitations to Consider
Relevanssi requires significant database space, and performance on shared hosting with limited resources can suffer with tens of thousands of posts. The plugin works within WordPress’s database constraints rather than transcending them, making it less suitable for very large sites or those requiring enterprise-grade performance.
ElasticPress: Enterprise-Grade Elasticsearch Power
ElasticPress takes a fundamentally different approach by connecting WordPress to Elasticsearch, the same search technology powering sites like Wikipedia, GitHub, and Netflix. This plugin targets large-scale sites where database-based solutions hit performance ceilings.
How ElasticPress Works
Rather than searching the WordPress database, ElasticPress syncs content to an Elasticsearch server that handles all search operations. Elasticsearch was purpose-built for search at scale, supporting complex queries, aggregations, and real-time indexing that relational databases struggle with.
This architecture means search performance remains consistent regardless of content volume. A site with two million posts performs similarly to one with two thousand because Elasticsearch handles the heavy lifting externally. The WordPress database serves content delivery while Elasticsearch manages discovery.
Key Features
Scalability: No practical upper limit on content volume when properly configured. The largest reported ElasticPress installation handles two million posts without performance issues.
WooCommerce Product Search: Handles complex queries like “cotton men’s t-shirt under $25 in stock” with precise, fast results using product attributes, price ranges, and inventory status.
Faceted Search: Native support for filtering by categories, attributes, custom fields, and taxonomies.
Geolocation Search: The 2025 version 5.2 update added location-based searching, valuable for directories and local business sites.
Multisite Support: Network-wide indexing across multisite installations with 15+ sites.
Headless WordPress Support: Search templates enable integration with decoupled front-ends built with React, Vue, or other frameworks. For more on this architecture, see our headless WordPress guide.
ElasticPress Pricing (2025)
ElasticPress itself is free and open-source, but requires an Elasticsearch server:
- ElasticPress Plugin: Free from WordPress.org or GitHub
- ElasticPress.io (Managed Service): Subscription pricing varies by usage; check elasticpress.io for current plans
- Self-Hosted Elasticsearch: Free software, but requires server resources and technical expertise to maintain
- Elastic Cloud: Elasticsearch’s official hosted service with pay-as-you-go pricing
The total cost depends heavily on your hosting approach. Self-hosting requires either existing server infrastructure or additional VPS costs. Managed services simplify setup but add monthly fees.
Best For
ElasticPress makes sense for large-scale sites, high-traffic installations, and enterprise WordPress deployments where database-based search creates bottlenecks. It’s the right choice when you need search to scale independently of your WordPress database or when building headless WordPress applications requiring API-based search.
Limitations to Consider
The complexity and infrastructure requirements make ElasticPress overkill for most WordPress sites. Setup requires defining Elasticsearch hosts in wp-config.php and running indexing commands via WP-CLI. Ongoing maintenance of an Elasticsearch server demands technical expertise or managed service fees. For sites under 20,000 posts with standard hosting, SearchWP or Relevanssi deliver equivalent results with far simpler implementation.
Feature Comparison Table
| Feature | SearchWP | Relevanssi | ElasticPress |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Version | No | Yes (full-featured) | Yes (requires Elasticsearch) |
| Starting Price | $99/year | Free / $119.83/year Premium | Free + hosting costs |
| Custom Field Search | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PDF Search | Yes | Premium only | Yes |
| WooCommerce Integration | Pro plan | Limited | Yes |
| Live Ajax Search | Yes | Premium only | Yes |
| Fuzzy/Typo Tolerance | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Search Analytics | Pro plan | Basic in Premium | Limited |
| Scalability Limit | ~20,000 posts | Varies by hosting | Millions of posts |
| Technical Complexity | Low | Low | High |
| External Infrastructure | No | No | Yes (Elasticsearch) |
| Multisite Support | Pro plan | Yes | Yes |
Which Plugin Should You Choose?
The right choice depends on your specific situation:
Choose SearchWP If:
- You run a WooCommerce store needing product attribute search
- Your site uses Advanced Custom Fields extensively
- You have PDF documents that should be searchable
- You want search analytics to understand user behavior
- Your site has under 20,000 total posts/pages
- You prefer no-code configuration
Choose Relevanssi If:
- Budget is a primary concern and the free version meets your needs
- You run a blog or content site without complex custom fields
- You need basic relevance sorting and fuzzy search without advanced features
- You manage multiple sites and want unlimited site licensing
Choose ElasticPress If:
- Your site has 50,000+ posts and growing
- You experience database performance issues with current search solutions
- You’re building a headless WordPress application
- You have technical resources to manage Elasticsearch infrastructure
- Search must scale independently of your WordPress database
Combining Search with Filtering: FacetWP
Worth mentioning is FacetWP, which complements rather than replaces these search plugins. FacetWP provides faceted filtering, allowing users to narrow results by categories, attributes, price ranges, and custom fields through Ajax-powered filter elements. It integrates with both SearchWP and Relevanssi, combining improved search with sophisticated filtering for an Amazon-style discovery experience.
For WooCommerce stores or content-heavy sites where users need to filter large result sets, pairing your chosen search plugin with FacetWP creates a complete discovery solution.
Making the Switch
Regardless of which plugin you choose, implementing better search follows a similar process:
- Install and activate your chosen plugin
- Configure indexing to include relevant content types and fields
- Build the initial index (larger sites may take several minutes to hours)
- Test searches for common user queries to verify relevance
- Monitor analytics (if available) to identify optimization opportunities
All three plugins automatically replace default WordPress search once activated, requiring no theme modifications for basic functionality.
Final Recommendation
For most WordPress site owners, SearchWP represents the best balance of features, usability, and value. The $99/year Standard plan delivers professional-grade search with custom field indexing, PDF search, and live Ajax results without requiring technical expertise or external infrastructure. WooCommerce store owners should invest in the Pro plan for product attribute search and analytics.
Relevanssi remains excellent for budget-conscious sites where the free version’s relevance sorting and fuzzy search solve the primary pain points. The Premium version offers value for agencies through unlimited site licensing.
ElasticPress serves a specific niche: large-scale sites where database-bound solutions create genuine performance constraints. If you’re not experiencing search-related performance issues and have under 50,000 posts, the added complexity isn’t worth it.
Whatever you choose, moving beyond WordPress’s default search transforms your site from frustrating to functional. Your visitors will find what they’re looking for, stay longer, and convert more often. That’s the search experience your content deserves.