Meilisearch
✓ Verified by EU AltsOpen-source, lightning-fast search engine — a French alternative to Algolia.
Overview
Meilisearch is a Paris, France-based European company building developer tools, open source, and search software since 2018. Despite its EU base, EU Alts has verified that Meilisearch independently owned, with its ultimate ownership based in France, and hosts customer data with AWS (Meilisearch Cloud) in Deployable in any AWS region; specific default/EU data residency not confirmed, so it may still fall under the reach of the US CLOUD Act — worth weighing against GitHub, Atlassian, and JetBrains's US-distributed peers on this specific point.
Why European teams pick Meilisearch
Teams in Europe still consider Meilisearch for its developer tools product and France presence, operating since 2018, but unlike a fully EU-owned provider, Meilisearch independently owned, with its ultimate ownership based in France, and hosts customer data with AWS (Meilisearch Cloud) in Deployable in any AWS region; specific default/EU data residency not confirmed — so it does not fully avoid US CLOUD Act exposure the way some other alternatives to GitHub, Atlassian, and JetBrains's US-distributed peers do.
See more EU developer tools tools or browse other startups from France.
About
Meilisearch is an open-source, lightning-fast search engine built in France by a Paris-based team. Written in Rust, it delivers sub-50ms full-text search results and is designed to be embedded directly into applications with minimal configuration. It supports typo-tolerance, faceted search, geosearch, multi-language tokenisation, and custom ranking rules out of the box. Meilisearch Cloud is hosted in EU data centres with GDPR compliance, and the open-source version (MIT licence) can be self-hosted on any EU server. It is a popular alternative to Algolia and Elasticsearch for teams that need fast, developer-friendly search without the operational complexity of managing an Elasticsearch cluster or sending user search queries to a US-hosted SaaS.
Details
- Founded
- 2018
- Headquarters
- Paris, France
- Ownership
- Independently owned (France)
- Hosting
- AWS (Meilisearch Cloud), Deployable in any AWS region; specific default/EU data residency not confirmed
- CLOUD Act
- Exposed
- Company size
- 11–50 employees
Categories
Other EU startups like Meilisearch
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- Codebahn Sweden — Codebahn is managed Git and CI for European teams.
- Curity Sweden — Swedish identity and API access platform. OAuth and OpenID Connect infrastructure for organisations where security and control are non-negotiable.
- Hanko Germany — Open-source passkey and passwordless authentication from Kiel, Germany. Made and hosted in Europe, with self-hosting available.
- cidaas Germany — German cloud identity and access management (CIAM) platform — made and hosted in Germany, with dedicated German server locations for regulated sectors.
- Ploq The Netherlands — Ploq is EU-built webhook infrastructure: retries, event filtering, and health monitoring, GDPR-compliant end to end. SDKs for Node.js and Java, a WordPress plugin, and a forkable Mac/Windows app for sending and receiving events.
Frequently asked questions
What is Meilisearch?
Meilisearch is an open-source, lightning-fast search engine built in France by a Paris-based team. Written in Rust, it delivers sub-50ms full-text search results and is designed to be embedded directly into applications with minimal configuration. It supports typo-tolerance, faceted search, geosearch, multi-language tokenisation, and custom ranking rules out of the box. Meilisearch Cloud is hosted in EU data centres with GDPR compliance, and the open-source version (MIT licence) can be self-hosted on any EU server. It is a popular alternative to Algolia and Elasticsearch for teams that need fast, developer-friendly search without the operational complexity of managing an Elasticsearch cluster or sending user search queries to a US-hosted SaaS.
What does Meilisearch do?
Meilisearch is open-source, lightning-fast search engine — a french alternative to algolia. It is listed under developer tools, open source, and search on EU Alts because its core functionality serves teams looking for a European developer tools tool with EU data residency, typically as a switch away from GitHub, Atlassian, and JetBrains's US-distributed peers.
Is Meilisearch a good European developer tools alternative?
Meilisearch is a fit for European businesses evaluating developer tools options where data residency and GDPR alignment matter — typical buyers include EU-based SaaS teams, public-sector projects, regulated industries (healthcare, finance, legal), and any organisation that needs to demonstrate that customer data does not leave the EU. It also overlaps with open source and search use cases.
Is Meilisearch GDPR compliant?
Meilisearch is headquartered in Paris, France and processes user data under the GDPR by default. Customer data processing is supervised by France's data protection authority, the Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL). However, EU Alts has verified that Meilisearch independently owned, with its ultimate ownership based in France, and hosts customer data with AWS (Meilisearch Cloud) in Deployable in any AWS region; specific default/EU data residency not confirmed, which means — unlike a fully EU-owned provider — it may still be reachable under the US CLOUD Act, similar to GitHub, Atlassian, and JetBrains's US-distributed peers in that respect.
How do teams switch from GitHub to Meilisearch?
Teams evaluating a move from GitHub, Atlassian, and JetBrains's US-distributed peers to Meilisearch should note: Meilisearch independently owned, with its ultimate ownership based in France, and hosts customer data with AWS (Meilisearch Cloud) in Deployable in any AWS region; specific default/EU data residency not confirmed, so this switch narrows but may not fully close the US CLOUD Act gap. Weigh that against the developer tools workflow fit before treating it as a complete Schrems II fix.
Where is Meilisearch based?
Meilisearch is headquartered in Paris, France. The company was founded in 2018. Its main website is https://www.meilisearch.com.