Algolia and Recombee both offer similar functionalities : search and recommendations. Which solution you should go for would depend on your use case :
Overall
Overall, Recombee offers a better price to performance ratio compared to Algolia. It’s free tier includes personalized search and recommendations with almost all features available (models optimized for general purposes, e-commerce, streaming, ads, etc…) and very generous usage limits (100 000 recommendation requests per month, etc…) which is more than enough for most (smaller) websites.
Algolia also works very well (you can check out case studies for both Algolia and Recombee) but is a more costly solution, good for bigger websites.
If you want to learn more about Recombee, you should check out our detailed review.
Keyword search
When it comes to basic keyword search, only one of these two solutions deliver : Algolia.
It is a very cost effective solution for low traffic websites since the free tier offers up to 10k searches a month.
AI/semantic search
None of these two solutions offer semantic search in the free tier.
For Algolia, the semantic search is only available with the most expensive plan (“Elevate”).
Recombee’s semantic search (comes included with personalization) is a bit less expensive than Algolia’s. You can contact Recombee for more information on which plan includes it.
Personalized search
Both solutions offer personalized search.
Recombee offers personalized search (keyword) in all of it’s plans including free tier. As mentioned above, if you wish to have semantic personalized search, you should contact Recombee for more information.
Algolia offers personalized search for it’s “Premium” plan and above. If you wish to add semantic search on top, “Elevate” plan is required.
Personalized recommendations
If you wish to use recommendations, you should probably go with Recombee.
Recombee includes personalized recommendations in it’s free tier which includes enough ressources (<100 000 recommendations requests a month) for low to medium traffic websites.
Algolia only includes personalized recommendations in it’s “Premium” plan which can be very expensive for smaller traffic websites.
Integrate Algolia and Recombee into WordPress
If you are interested in implementing Algolia and Recombee into your WordPress website, you could check out WPSolr.
WPSolr is a search & recommendations plugin that makes use of many search & recommendations engines, including Recombee. It can integrate all of Algolia and Recombee’s features including personalized search (keyword, image & semantic) & recommendations into WordPress & Woocommerce to maximize your website’s effectiveness and performance.
