@elastic/elasticsearch

What is @elastic/elasticsearch?

@elastic/elasticsearch is the official Node.js client for Elasticsearch. It allows developers to interact with Elasticsearch clusters, perform CRUD operations, search, and manage indices, among other functionalities.

What are @elastic/elasticsearch's main functionalities?

Connecting to Elasticsearch

This code demonstrates how to create a new client instance to connect to an Elasticsearch cluster running on localhost.

const { Client } = require('@elastic/elasticsearch');
const client = new Client({ node: 'http://localhost:9200' });

Indexing Documents

This code sample shows how to index a document into an Elasticsearch index named 'my-index'.

async function run() {
  await client.index({
    index: 'my-index',
    id: '1',
    body: {
      title: 'Test Document',
      content: 'This is a test document.'
    }
  });
}
run().catch(console.log);

Searching Documents

This code demonstrates how to search for documents in the 'my-index' index that match the term 'Test' in the title field.

async function run() {
  const { body } = await client.search({
    index: 'my-index',
    body: {
      query: {
        match: { title: 'Test' }
      }
    }
  });
  console.log(body.hits.hits);
}
run().catch(console.log);

Managing Indices

This code sample shows how to create a new index named 'my-new-index' in Elasticsearch.

async function run() {
  await client.indices.create({
    index: 'my-new-index'
  });
}
run().catch(console.log);

Other packages similar to @elastic/elasticsearch

elasticsearch

The 'elasticsearch' package is an older, community-maintained client for Elasticsearch. It provides similar functionalities but is not officially maintained by Elastic. It may lack some of the newer features and optimizations present in @elastic/elasticsearch.

searchkit

Searchkit is a toolkit for building search UIs with Elasticsearch. It provides higher-level abstractions and components for building search interfaces, making it easier to integrate Elasticsearch into front-end applications. However, it may not offer the same low-level control as @elastic/elasticsearch.

README

Elasticsearch Node.js client

Download the latest version of Elasticsearch or sign-up for a free trial of Elastic Cloud.

The official Node.js client for Elasticsearch.

Installation

Refer to the Installation section of the getting started documentation.

Connecting

Refer to the Connecting section of the getting started documentation.

Compatibility

The Elasticsearch client is compatible with currently maintained JS versions.

Language clients are forward compatible; meaning that clients support communicating with greater or equal minor versions of Elasticsearch without breaking. It does not mean that the client automatically supports new features of newer Elasticsearch versions; it is only possible after a release of a new client version. For example, a 8.12 client version won't automatically support the new features of the 8.13 version of Elasticsearch, the 8.13 client version is required for that. Elasticsearch language clients are only backwards compatible with default distributions and without guarantees made.

Elasticsearch Version	Elasticsearch-JS Branch	Supported
main	main
8.x	8.x	8.x
7.x	7.x	7.17

Usage

• Creating an index
• Indexing a document
• Getting documents
• Searching documents
• Updating documents
• Deleting documents
• Deleting an index

Node.js support

NOTE: The minimum supported version of Node.js is v18.

The client versioning follows the Elastic Stack versioning, this means that major, minor, and patch releases are done following a precise schedule that often does not coincide with the Node.js release times.

To avoid support insecure and unsupported versions of Node.js, the client will drop the support of EOL versions of Node.js between minor releases. Typically, as soon as a Node.js version goes into EOL, the client will continue to support that version for at least another minor release. If you are using the client with a version of Node.js that will be unsupported soon, you will see a warning in your logs (the client will start logging the warning with two minors in advance).

Unless you are always using a supported version of Node.js, we recommend defining the client dependency in your package.json with the ~ instead of ^. In this way, you will lock the dependency on the minor release and not the major. (for example, ~7.10.0 instead of ^7.10.0).

Node.js Version	Node.js EOL date	End of support
8.x	December 2019	7.11 (early 2021)
10.x	April 2021	7.12 (mid 2021)
12.x	April 2022	8.2 (early 2022)
14.x	April 2023	8.8 (early 2023)
16.x	September 2023	8.11 (late 2023)

Compatibility

Language clients are forward compatible; meaning that clients support communicating with greater or equal minor versions of Elasticsearch. Elasticsearch language clients are only backwards compatible with default distributions and without guarantees made.

Elasticsearch Version	Client Version
8.x	8.x
7.x	7.x
6.x	6.x
5.x	5.x

To install a specific major of the client, run the following command:

npm install @elastic/elasticsearch@<major>

Browser

[!WARNING] There is no official support for the browser environment. It exposes your Elasticsearch instance to everyone, which could lead to security issues. We recommend that you write a lightweight proxy that uses this client instead, you can see a proxy example here.

Documentation

• Introduction
• Usage
• Client configuration
• API reference
• Authentication
• Observability
• Creating a child client
• Client helpers
• Typescript support
• Testing
• Examples

Install multiple versions

If you are using multiple versions of Elasticsearch, you need to use multiple versions of the client. In the past, install multiple versions of the same package was not possible, but with npm v6.9, you can do that via aliasing.

The command you must run to install different version of the client is:

npm install <alias>@npm:@elastic/elasticsearch@<version>

So for example if you need to install 7.x and 6.x, you will run:

npm install es6@npm:@elastic/elasticsearch@6
npm install es7@npm:@elastic/elasticsearch@7

And your package.json will look like the following:

"dependencies": {
  "es6": "npm:@elastic/elasticsearch@^6.7.0",
  "es7": "npm:@elastic/elasticsearch@^7.0.0"
}

You will require the packages from your code by using the alias you have defined.

const { Client: Client6 } = require('es6')
const { Client: Client7 } = require('es7')

const client6 = new Client6({
  cloud: { id: '<cloud-id>' },
  auth: { apiKey: 'base64EncodedKey' }
})
const client7 = new Client7({
  cloud: { id: '<cloud-id>' },
  auth: { apiKey: 'base64EncodedKey' }
})

client6.info().then(console.log, console.log)
client7.info().then(console.log, console.log)

Finally, if you want to install the client for the next version of Elasticsearch (the one that lives in Elasticsearch’s main branch), you can use the following command:

npm install esmain@github:elastic/elasticsearch-js

License

This software is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.