What is Orama used for?

Orama is a search engine and retrieval pipeline in TypeScript that runs in the browser, on a server or at the edge, supporting full-text, vector and hybrid search. It is a good fit for search on documentation sites, retrieval for RAG applications and client-side search without a backend.

Is Orama open source?

Yes. Orama is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at oramasearch/orama and is written mainly in TypeScript.

Yes. Orama is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.

Can I self-host Orama?

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

What is Orama an alternative to?

Orama is an open-source alternative to Algolia, AddSearch and Google Programmable Search Engine. Other open-source alternatives to Algolia include Meilisearch, Typesense and OpenSearchServer.

Is Orama actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Orama was on 28 September 2026, and the latest release is v3.1.18, published on 19 December 2025. The project has 11k stars on GitHub.

Orama: open-source alternative to Algolia, AddSearch

About Orama

Orama is a search engine written in TypeScript that can be embedded wherever JavaScript runs, including browsers, servers and edge networks. Beyond keyword search it also supports vector search and a hybrid mode, and it aims to serve as the retrieval part of RAG pipelines.

Highlighted features include full-text search alongside semantic vector lookup, a hybrid mode, GenAI chat sessions, search filters, geosearch, pinning rules for merchandising, facets, field boosting, typo tolerance, exact match, BM25 ranking, stemming and tokenization in 30 languages, and a plugin system. A schema defines the indexed fields, and ten data types are supported, including strings, numbers, booleans, enums, geopoints and arrays of these.

Orama installs with npm, yarn, pnpm or bun, can be imported straight into a browser module and works with Deno. The repository lists the licence as Other, and the project offers documentation and a Slack channel. It suits developers adding fast on-site search or AI retrieval to apps without running a separate search server.

Key features

Full-text, vector and hybrid search
Typo tolerance and BM25 ranking
Facets, filters and geosearch
Stemming in 30 languages
GenAI chat sessions
Extensible through a plugin system
Runs in browser, server or edge

Good fit for

→Search on documentation sites
→Retrieval for RAG applications
→Client-side search without a backend

Built with: TypeScript; JavaScript
Tags: search-engine; full-text-search; vector-search; hybrid-search; typescript; rag; edge; javascript

Orama: questions and answers

What is Orama used for?: Orama is a search engine and retrieval pipeline in TypeScript that runs in the browser, on a server or at the edge, supporting full-text, vector and hybrid search. It is a good fit for search on documentation sites, retrieval for RAG applications and client-side search without a backend.
Is Orama open source?: Yes. Orama is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at oramasearch/orama and is written mainly in TypeScript.
Is Orama free?: Yes. Orama is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.
Can I self-host Orama?: Yes. Orama can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Orama an alternative to?: Orama is an open-source alternative to Algolia, AddSearch and Google Programmable Search Engine. Other open-source alternatives to Algolia include Meilisearch, Typesense and OpenSearchServer.
Is Orama actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Orama was on 28 September 2026, and the latest release is v3.1.18, published on 19 December 2025. The project has 11k stars on GitHub.