Relevanssi review
A self-hosted WordPress search plugin with a free plan and paid indexing and analytics.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Relevanssi replaces WordPress’s default search with a configurable relevance-based engine. It is aimed at site owners who want more control over which WordPress content appears in search results, including sites with custom post types, WooCommerce product data or discussions. It is open source, self-hosted and has a free plan, so the core proposition is a WordPress plugin rather than a hosted search service or a general-purpose site-search system.
Relevance tuning is its central strength: results can be scored using keyword frequency, proximity and content importance, with configurable weighting for titles, tags, comments and other fields. Search can extend to custom fields such as WooCommerce SKUs and ACF fields, categories, tags, custom taxonomies, comments and comment authors. Integrations include WooCommerce, bbPress, ACF and WPML. These options fit sites whose content structure extends beyond standard posts and pages. Premium expands the scope with full-text indexing of PDFs and other documents, searches across a WordPress multisite network, and search logging and analytics.
The paid licenses are listed as one-off payments. Annual costs €120 per year and includes unlimited sites plus support and upgrades for a year; Permanent costs €402 once and includes unlimited sites plus lifetime upgrades and support. The vendor states that refunds are available within 30 days, while Premium has no free trial. Relevanssi makes sense for WordPress teams prioritizing relevance controls and deeper indexing, particularly when analytics or document search matters. Sites that need autocomplete or faceted search should look elsewhere, as those capabilities are not part of its stated scope.
Relevanssi pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Weights results by keyword frequency, proximity and content importance
- Searches custom fields, taxonomies, comments and comment authors
- Premium adds document indexing, multisite search and search analytics
- Where it doesn't
- Limited to WordPress and self-hosted deployment
- No autocomplete or faceted search
- Premium has no free trial
Relevanssi fact sheet, pricing and score →
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