Workplace Search documentation

ℹ️ The future of internal knowledge search with Elastic

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The internal knowledge search use case (AKA workplace search) continues to be a top priority for Elastic. We are actively developing new features and capabilities in Elasticsearch to serve this use case. For new users, we strongly recommend using our native Elasticsearch tools for your workplace search needs, rather than the standalone Workplace Search product.

We have provided a comparison table below to help you understand the differences between the standalone product and our native Elasticsearch tools.

Read our companion blog post to learn more about the past, present and future of internal knowledge search with Elastic. Check out this example app to see how you can build your own internal knowledge search experience using our native Elasticsearch tools.

Table: Workplace Search (standalone) vs. Elasticsearch

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Use the following table to compare the standalone Workplace Search product with the native Elasticsearch tools our team are actively developing.

Workplace Search (standalone product) Elasticsearch tools

Overview

Out-of-the-box product. An opinionated solution developed as a user-friendly abstraction on top of Elasticsearch.

Flexible toolkit that works directly with Elasticsearch. Elastic managed connectors are hosted on Elastic Cloud. Self-managed connectors are run on your infrastructure and can be customized.

Product status

Supported

Active development

Connector portfolio

17 data sources

20 data sources and growing

Customizing connectors

Customize one of the 7 connector packages available

Customize any of our 20 (and growing) connectors in our public elastic/connectors repo

Connecting custom sources

Write your custom connector via Custom API sources

Build a customized connector in Python using our open code connector framework

Indexing strategy

Content saved to hidden Workplace search indexes (managed, opinionated storage)

Content saved to Elasticsearch indexes (flexible, familiar Elastic APIs)

User interface and search experience

Built-in opinionated search interface; cannot be customized

Build your own customizable search experience

Admin tooling

Workplace Search built-in tools

Elasticsearch native

Release cycles

Security fixes tied with official Elastic release cycles

Updates immediately available in elastic/connectors, independent of Elastic stack release cycles

Source code

Closed source connector code

Open code connectors available in our public elastic/connectors repo

Binary content extraction

Limited content extraction

Content extraction via Elasticsearch, with ingest pipeline integration. Extraction of large binary files supported on edge for most connector clients.

Machine Learning

Not supported

Leverage all Elasticsearch ML capabilities