What is OpenSearch used for?

OpenSearch is an Apache-licensed, distributed and RESTful search engine and observability suite for searching, analyzing and monitoring large volumes of unstructured data. It is a good fit for application and site search, and log analytics and observability.

Is OpenSearch open source?

Yes. OpenSearch is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at opensearch-project/OpenSearch and is written mainly in Java.

Yes. OpenSearch is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.

Can I self-host OpenSearch?

Yes. OpenSearch can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is OpenSearch an alternative to?

OpenSearch is an open-source alternative to Elastic, Splunk, Amazon OpenSearch Service and Azure AI Search. Other open-source alternatives to Elastic include Apache Solr, Vespa and Manticore Search.

Is OpenSearch actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to OpenSearch was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is 3.9.0, published on 29 September 2026. The project has 14k stars on GitHub.

OpenSearch: open-source alternative to Elastic, Splunk

About OpenSearch

OpenSearch is an open-source search and observability suite that makes large amounts of unstructured data searchable and analyzable. It is a distributed engine with a RESTful API, written in Java, and developed in the open by the OpenSearch community under the Apache 2.0 licence.

Teams use it for full-text search, log and event analytics, and monitoring of applications and infrastructure. The project provides downloads, documentation, forums and Slack channels, and it follows a formal release and maintainer process. Because it is distributed, clusters can be scaled across multiple nodes as data volumes grow.

OpenSearch includes certain Apache-licensed code derived from Elasticsearch, as its trademark notice explains. You can run it on your own servers, or use managed services offered by cloud providers. Security issues are reported privately by email rather than through public issues, and the project maintains a code of conduct for contributors.

Key features

Distributed search with a RESTful API
Full-text search over unstructured data
Log and event analytics
Observability and monitoring use cases
Scales across nodes in a cluster
Apache 2.0 licensed Java codebase

Good fit for

→Application and site search
→Log analytics and observability

Built with: Java
Tags: search-engine; search; analytics; observability; distributed; java; rest-api; logs; open-source

OpenSearch: questions and answers

What is OpenSearch used for?: OpenSearch is an Apache-licensed, distributed and RESTful search engine and observability suite for searching, analyzing and monitoring large volumes of unstructured data. It is a good fit for application and site search, and log analytics and observability.
Is OpenSearch open source?: Yes. OpenSearch is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at opensearch-project/OpenSearch and is written mainly in Java.
Is OpenSearch free?: Yes. OpenSearch is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.
Can I self-host OpenSearch?: Yes. OpenSearch can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is OpenSearch an alternative to?: OpenSearch is an open-source alternative to Elastic, Splunk, Amazon OpenSearch Service and Azure AI Search. Other open-source alternatives to Elastic include Apache Solr, Vespa and Manticore Search.
Is OpenSearch actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to OpenSearch was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is 3.9.0, published on 29 September 2026. The project has 14k stars on GitHub.