This post summarises the work we’ve done in last several months reviewing site search solutions for Magento eCommerce. In total 8 solutions were reviewed (both cloud and self-hosted) using our own methodology. Now it is time to compare the results, so here is our Magento Site Searches comparison.

Magento Site Search solutions reviewed

Here is the list of the solutions we reviewed, you can click to the solution name below to check detailed review:

1. Magento 1.9 default search (CE)
2. Magento 2 default search (CE)
3. Sphinx Search Ultimate
4. Blast Search Lucene
5. Solr Bridge
6. Celebros Search
7. Algolia Search
8. Sooqr Search

 Comparison methodology

For comparison table and chart we used the next list of functional criteria:

1. Search quality – aggregated score for quality of search that reflect relevance, ranking, work with mixed word orders and other things
2. Search scope – where the search works – products only or also categories and CMS pages
3. Auto-complete – quality and usability of auto-complete functionality
4. Auto-suggest – quality and usability of auto-complete functionality
5. Search results page – functionality and design of search results page, including use of faceted search

Also, each criteria was given a weight that corresponds with its importance. We gave search quality 10 and all other criteria 5. At the end we’ve sum up all individual criteria multiplied by their weights to get the total score for each solution.

The results of comparison

The results are presented on the chart you may notice at the begin of this post. An interactive version of the same chart is below:

Also the same results in the table form. We’ve also added there a column that reflect the price level of the solution. The pricing is a bit tricky, especially for the cloud solutions, so it is better to check how much will it cost in your case before making any decision.

The leaders: Sphinx Search Ultimate and Algolia

There are 2 clear leaders among the solutions we reviewed – Sphinx Search Ultimate from Mirasvit (self-hosted solution) and Algolia from the company with the same name (cloud/SaaS solution). While not ideal (unfortunately none of the solution we’ve checked works well with synonyms, special chars and jargon, at least in the default configuration), in our opinion they provide better site search than competitors and hence increase overall usability of online stores and the chances to convert visitors to customers.

We admit that our comparison may be not perfect and we haven’t taken into account some important criteria, so you are more than welcome to share your thoughts in the comments to this post.