Getting started with Elastic Enterprise Search

Elastic Enterprise Search is a collection of tools for searching content. Use these tools to build search experiences for your customers and internal teams.

To get started, first satisfy the prerequisites. Then learn about tool compatibility and choose your tools.

Enterprise Search tools are features of the Elastic search platform. Therefore, to use these tools you must first have an Elastic subscription, deployment, and user (or token).

If you are new to Elastic, get started for free on Elastic Cloud.

Alternatively, create a deployment on your local machine (see next section).

See Elastic subscription for additional options to manage your Elastic subscription.

You need an Elastic deployment to store your documents. Choose an existing deployment, or create a new deployment on Elastic Cloud.

To use engines or content sources, your deployment must include the Enterprise Search server. New deployments on Elastic Cloud always include this service. However, when unused, Elastic Cloud will eventually disable the service. If using an existing deployment, you may need to re-enable the Enterprise Search service.

To create a deployment on your local machine, see Run using Docker images or Run using downloads (packages). For additional options, see Elastic deployment.

Access to Enterprise Search varies by feature. You will need a user or token with the necessary permissions.

The Elastic Cloud user used to create a deployment is a superuser who can access all Enterprise Search features. Use this user account, or create additional users or tokens with the necessary permissions.

At a minimum, users must have access to the Enterprise Search space in order to access Enterprise Search in Kibana. See Kibana spaces for more information about configuring access to spaces. Users must also have read and manage privileges for indices with the pattern search-* in order to create an Elasticsearch index through the Enterprise Search in Kibana.

App Search and Workplace Search features use role-based access control. See Users and access to grant or restrict access to App Search and Workplace Search features.

See Elastic users (or tokens) for more details.

To design your search solution, first choose the right tools for the job.

Implementations generally have the same abstract steps, which are presented below. For each step, choose the tools that apply to your use case. Follow the links for those tools to continue with your implementation.

Most tools are compatible with one another. Learn more about tool compatibility for the nuances in how tools interact.

Tools in this category help you consolidate content from various data sources into Elasticsearch. For each original data source, you must extract the content, transform the content into documents, and store those documents in Elasticsearch.

You may need to complete this process only once, or you may need to integrate Elastic with other software to keep your Elasticsearch documents in sync with your various data sources.

Determine which content you would like to search and how to access it. Review the following table to find the best tool for each data source.

Most of the following tools operate on indices. Keep this in mind when choosing your search tools. Remember that you can create an engine for each index, if desired.

Use tools in this category to search your documents or build search experiences for your customers, teams, or other audiences. Search using an existing UI, quickly generate a search UI, or integrate search into existing applications.

Most of the following tools operate on engines. Keep this in mind when choosing your document management tools. Remember that you can create an engine for each index, if desired.

From a single search UI, you can search multiple indices, multiple engines, or multiple content sources. To search multiple engines, create a meta engine.

You cannot combine documents from indices, engines, and content sources within the same search results. See Engines and content sources for various solutions, including creating engines from indices.

Use the tools in this category to optimize your search results. Most tools are available via UI and API.

All of the following tools operate on engines. Remember that you can create an engine for each index.

To further optimize your search experience, use the following tools to analyze the performance of your search results.

All of the following tools operate on engines. Remember that you can create an engine for each index.

Some Enterprise Search tools operate directly on Elasticsearch indices. Other tools require App Search engines or Workplace Search content sources to enable additional features. Elasticsearch indices live at the core of engines and content sources. In many cases, you can improve compatibility with tools by using an engine created from the underlying Elasticsearch indices.

Elasticsearch stores and retrieves documents from indices (singular: index). Most Elastic platform tools operate directly on indices. However, many Enterprise Search tools operate on App Search engines.

Engines are based on Elasticsearch indices and optimized for content search. They are language-specific and pre-tuned.

A meta engine allows searching over multiple engines.

See Engines and content sources for how to create engines from indices and content sources.

Workplace Search connectors sync to Workplace Search content sources. Content sources are based on Elasticsearch indices and optimized for content search.

To improve compatibility with tools that operate on engines and indices, refer to the following solutions: