About OpenSearch
Updated December 20, 2022
OpenSearch is a community-driven, open-source search and analytics suite used by developers to ingest, search, visualize, and analyze data. OpenSearch consists of a data store and search engine (OpenSearch), a visualization and user interface (OpenSearch Dashboards), and a server-side data collector (Data Prepper). Users can extend the functionality of OpenSearch with a selection of plugins that enhance search, analytics, observability, security, machine learning, and more.
The OpenSearch Project was first announced in January 2021 as an open-source fork of Elasticsearch and Kibana to provide a secure, high-quality, fully open-source search and analytics suite with a rich feature roadmap. In July 2021, the project released OpenSearch 1.0 for production under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (ALv2), with the codebase published to GitHub and open to contribution from the OpenSearch community. A comprehensive project roadmap is maintained here.
Since the start of the project, the OpenSearch community has grown to 100s of contributors, 1000s of pull requests, 1000s of issues closed, and is organized across more than 90 repositories. In November 2022, OpenSearch released version 2.4 of the project with the introduction of Windows distributions and enhancements to cluster resiliency, search functionality, analytics tools, and more.
The latest release of OpenSearch is available for download here.
As a fully open source solution, OpenSearch offers you the freedom to modify, extend, monetize, and resell the product as you see fit, as well as the flexibility to deploy on a variety of infrastructures. At the same time, the OpenSearch project provides a secure, high-quality search and analytics suite with a rich roadmap of new and innovative functionality.
OpenSearch is built with your input. The project is maintained and advanced by a community, including a network of partners, and is open to contribution. We invite you to get involved.
Principles for development
When we (the contributors) are successful, OpenSearch will be:
Great software.
If it doesn’t solve your problems, everything else is moot. It’s going to be software you love to use.
Open source like we mean it.
We are invested in this being a successful open-source project for the long term. It’s all Apache 2.0. There’s no Contributor License Agreement. Easy.
A level playing field.
We will not tweak the software so that it runs better for any vendor (including AWS) at the expense of others. If this happens, call it out and we will fix it as a community.
Used everywhere.
Our goal is for as many people as possible to use it in their business, their software, and their projects. Use it however you want. Surprise us!
Made with your input.
We will ask for public input on direction, requirements, and implementation for any feature we build.
Open to contributions.
Great open-source software is built together, with a diverse community of contributors. If you want to get involved at any level - big, small, or huge - we will find a way to make that happen. We don’t know what that looks like yet, and we look forward to figuring it out together.
Respectful, approachable, and friendly.
This will be a community where you will be heard, accepted, and valued, whether you are a new or experienced user or contributor.
A place to invent.
You will be able to innovate rapidly. This project will have a stable and predictable foundation that is modular, making it easy to extend.
OpenSearch disambiguation
At the 2005 O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, Jeff Bezos showed the world the OpenSearch syndication protocol. You can find more details on Wikipedia. This specification is maintained in GitHub at github.com/dewitt/opensearch.