Self-hosting Meilisearch

Learn about self-hosting Meilisearch, from installation to production deployment, security, and backups.

Meilisearch is a single binary with no external dependencies. You can run it on any Linux, macOS, or Windows machine, on bare metal or in containers.

Meilisearch Cloud is the recommended way to use Meilisearch. It handles provisioning, scaling, security, and updates for you. Self-hosting gives you full control over your infrastructure.

When to self-host

Self-hosting Meilisearch makes sense when you need:

• Full infrastructure control: choose your own servers, network configuration, and storage
• Data residency compliance: keep data in specific geographic regions or on-premises
• Custom deployment pipelines: integrate Meilisearch into existing CI/CD and orchestration workflows
• Air-gapped environments: run Meilisearch in networks without internet access

What you’ll need

• A server running a supported operating system
• At least 256 MB of RAM (more for larger datasets, see performance guide)
• The Meilisearch binary, available via direct download, Docker, Homebrew, or APT

For production deployments, you will also need:

• A reverse proxy (Nginx or Caddy) for HTTPS termination
• A process manager (systemd) to keep Meilisearch running
• A master key for authentication

Next steps

Quick start

Install Meilisearch, add documents, and run your first search.

Deploy to production

Deploy Meilisearch on AWS, GCP, Azure, or DigitalOcean.

Secure your instance

Set up API keys, HTTPS, and access control.

Configuration

Configure Meilisearch with CLI options, environment variables, or a config file.