Introduction to plugins

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Plugins are a way to enhance the core Elasticsearch functionality in a custom manner. They range from adding custom mapping types, custom analyzers, native scripts, custom discovery and more.

There are three types of plugins:

Java plugins
These plugins contain only JAR files, and must be installed on every node in the cluster. After installation, each node must be restarted before the plugin becomes visible.
Site plugins

These plugins contain static web content like Javascript, HTML, and CSS files, that can be served directly from Elasticsearch. Site plugins may only need to be installed on one node, and do not require a restart to become visible. The content of site plugins is accessible via a URL like:

http://yournode:9200/_plugin/[plugin name]
Mixed plugins
Mixed plugins contain both JAR files and web content.

For advice on writing your own plugin, see Help for plugin authors.