Amazon Elasticsearch Service
Amazon Elasticsearch Service
Amazon OpenSearch Service API (formerly Elasticsearch Service) manages hosted OpenSearch/Elasticsearch clusters — search, log aggregation, observability.
Fully managed, saving ops effort
Since OpenSearch/Elasticsearch forked, new versions diverge (OpenSearch lacks Elastic's commercial ML features)
CreateDomain to create a cluster (specify instance type, storage, VPC). Wait 15-30 minutes for ready. Use standard ES/OpenSearch APIs.
Uptime · 30-day window
GitHub activity
About this API
OpenSearch Service is AWS's managed search cluster. In 2021 Elastic switched Elasticsearch to SSPL license (no longer open source); AWS forked OpenSearch (continuing Apache 2.0), renaming the original Elasticsearch Service to OpenSearch Service. Customers now creating clusters default to OpenSearch (API-compatible to ES 7.10), with Elasticsearch option preserved (up to ES 7.10). Two main use cases: (1) application search (e-commerce, content search, log/event search), (2) observability (centralized app logs, metrics, tracing, with OpenSearch Dashboards for visualization). Compared to Elastic Cloud: similar pricing, deeper AWS integration, but lacks Elastic's commercial ML/Security features.
What you can build
- 1Website/app search engine
- 2Centralized logging (apps → OpenSearch → Kibana dashboard)
- 3APM/observability backend
- 4E-commerce product search
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- Fully managed, saving ops effort
- Deep AWS data ecosystem integration (Kinesis, S3 backup, IAM auth)
- OpenSearch is ES 7.10 API-compatible
Limitations
- Since OpenSearch/Elasticsearch forked, new versions diverge (OpenSearch lacks Elastic's commercial ML features)
- High cost (cluster runs 24/7)
Getting started
CreateDomain to create a cluster (specify instance type, storage, VPC). Wait 15-30 minutes for ready. Use standard ES/OpenSearch APIs.
FAQ
OpenSearch vs. Elasticsearch?+
Both forked from ES 7.10. OpenSearch is Apache 2.0 open source, AWS-led. Elasticsearch is SSPL, Elastic-led. Subsequent versions diverge.
How is OpenSearch Serverless?+
New option, billed by ingest and search. Saves ops but cost control is weaker than provisioned. Suits spiky workloads.
Technical details
- Auth type
- unknown
- Pricing
- unknown
- Protocols
- REST
- SDKs
- python, javascript, go, java, csharp
- Response time
- 44 ms
- Last health check
- 6/26/2026, 6:22:16 AM
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