Amazon CloudSearch

Caution

AWS is phasing out this service or has closed it to new customers. Check its current status in the official docs before using it in a new project.

Concept

Amazon CloudSearch was AWS’s older managed service for adding search to a website or app. You created a search domain in it and uploaded the documents to be searched. CloudSearch built an index from those documents so they could be searched quickly by word. AWS took care of the servers and the size of the index. AWS has closed it to new customers, and new work uses Amazon OpenSearch Service.

Simple example

An old-style library card catalog — it works, but the new digital catalog can do more.

Why it’s needed

Building your own search engine was hard, so a ready-made service was needed.

Where it’s used

AWS has closed it to new customers; new work uses Amazon OpenSearch Service.

Azure equivalent

Azure AI Search

Remember

CloudSearch = the old search service; use OpenSearch for new work.

Learn more

For details and the latest information, see the official documentation:

• Amazon CloudSearch — AWS official documentation ↗