algoliasearch
Advanced tools
The algoliasearch npm package is a JavaScript client for Algolia, a hosted search API that provides a fast and accurate search experience for websites and mobile applications. The package allows developers to integrate Algolia's search capabilities into their JavaScript applications, enabling features such as full-text search, faceting, filtering, and geolocation queries.
Search
Perform a search query on an Algolia index and retrieve the results.
const algoliasearch = require('algoliasearch');
const client = algoliasearch('YourApplicationID', 'YourAdminAPIKey');
const index = client.initIndex('your_index_name');
index.search('query string').then(({ hits }) => {
console.log(hits);
});Indexing
Add or update a record in an Algolia index.
const algoliasearch = require('algoliasearch');
const client = algoliasearch('YourApplicationID', 'YourAdminAPIKey');
const index = client.initIndex('your_index_name');
index.saveObject({ objectID: '1', name: 'Foo' }).then(() => {
console.log('Object indexed');
});Configure Index Settings
Configure settings of an Algolia index to define ranking, attributes for faceting, etc.
const algoliasearch = require('algoliasearch');
const client = algoliasearch('YourApplicationID', 'YourAdminAPIKey');
const index = client.initIndex('your_index_name');
index.setSettings({
searchableAttributes: ['name', 'description'],
customRanking: ['desc(popularity)']
}).then(() => {
console.log('Settings updated');
});Manage Indices
List all indices in your Algolia application and manage them.
const algoliasearch = require('algoliasearch');
const client = algoliasearch('YourApplicationID', 'YourAdminAPIKey');
client.listIndices().then(({ items }) => {
console.log(items);
});Elasticsearch is a distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine capable of solving a growing number of use cases. The elasticsearch npm package is the official Elasticsearch client for Node.js. It provides similar search capabilities but is typically self-hosted, unlike Algolia which is a managed service.
Solr-node is a client library for interacting with Apache Solr, which is an open-source search platform. Similar to Algolia, it provides full-text search, but it requires self-hosting and manual scaling, whereas Algolia offers a fully managed service.
Typesense is an open-source, typo-tolerant search engine that provides a similar developer experience to Algolia. The typesense npm package allows you to integrate Typesense into your JavaScript applications. It is designed to be easy to use and deploy, offering an alternative to Algolia with a focus on simplicity and speed.
Algolia Search is a search API that provides hosted full-text, numerical and faceted search. Algolia’s Search API makes it easy to deliver a great search experience in your apps & websites providing:
This Javascript client let you easily use the Algolia Search API in a browser, it is compatible with major browsers:
The JavaScript client is using CORS (Cross Origin Resource Sharing) on recent browsers and has a fallback on JSONP (JSON with padding) for old browsers.
Get started
Commands reference
To setup your project, follow these steps:
bower:Bower works by fetching and installing packages from all over, taking care of hunting, finding, downloading, and saving the stuff you’re looking for.
$ bower install algoliasearch
jsDelivr CDN:jsDelivr can offer a performance benefit by hosting algoliasearch on servers spread across the globe. This also offers an advantage that if the visitor to your webpage has already downloaded a copy of algoliasearch from jsDelivr, it won't have to be re-downloaded.
<script src="//cdn.jsdelivr.net/algoliasearch/{VERSION}/algoliasearch.min.js"></script>
<script src="//cdn.jsdelivr.net/algoliasearch/{VERSION}/algoliasearch.jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="//cdn.jsdelivr.net/algoliasearch/{VERSION}/algoliasearch.angular.min.js"></script>
Github:Download the client from Github's archive.
algoliasearch.min.js OR algoliasearch.jquery.min.js OR algoliasearch.angular.min.js<script src="algoliasearch.min.js"></script>
<script>
var client = new AlgoliaSearch('ApplicationID', 'Search-Only-API-Key');
// ...
$.ajax to perform HTTP requests<script src="algoliasearch.jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
var client = $.algolia.Client('ApplicationID', 'Search-Only-API-Key');
// ...
$http and $q to perform HTTP requestsIf your application is based on Angular.js, you need to use our Angular.js integration instead of the vanilla one to be able to render the hits with Angular.js once the engine answers.
<script src="algoliasearch.angular.min.js"></script>
<script>
angular
.module('myapp', ['algoliasearch'])
.controller('SearchCtrl', ['$scope', 'algolia', function($scope, algolia) {
$scope.query = '';
$scope.hits = [];
var client = algolia.Client('ApplicationID', 'Search-Only-API-Key');
// ...
}]);
...
The JavaScript API client is dedicated to web apps searching directly from the browser. To add, remove or delete your objects please consider using a backend API client.
You can then update the example/autocomplete.html file with your ApplicationID, API-Key and index name to test the autocomplete feature.
You can also update the example/instantsearch.html file with your ApplicationID, API-Key and index name to test an instant-search example.
All API calls will return the result in a callback that takes two arguments:
content.message)Queries will be stored in a cache inside your JavaScript Index and AlgoliaSearch objects to avoid performing the same API calls twice. It's particularly useful when your users are deleting letters/words from the current query but may end in some outdated results if the page isn't refreshed for some time.
Just clear the cache every X minutes to ensure you've always up-to-date results:
// clear the queries cache
index.clearCache();
// if you're performing multi-queries using the API client instead of the index
// you'll need to use the following code
algoliaClient.clearCache();
Check our online documentation:
Check our tutorials:
To perform a search, you just need to initialize the index and perform a call to the search function.
You can use the following optional arguments:
attributesToIndex index setting). Attributes are separated with a comma (for example "name,address"), you can also use a JSON string array encoding (for example encodeURIComponent("["name","address"]")). By default, all attributes specified in attributesToIndex settings are used to search.". For example, "search engine" will retrieve records having search next to engine only. Typo-tolerance is disabled on phrase queries.- symbol. For example search -engine will retrieve records containing search but not engine.page=9aroundLatLng: search for entries around a given latitude/longitude (specified as two floats separated by a comma).
For example aroundLatLng=47.316669,5.016670).
You can specify the maximum distance in meters with the aroundRadius parameter (in meters) and the precision for ranking with aroundPrecision (for example if you set aroundPrecision=100, two objects that are distant of less than 100m will be considered as identical for "geo" ranking parameter).
At indexing, you should specify geoloc of an object with the _geoloc attribute (in the form {"_geoloc":{"lat":48.853409, "lng":2.348800}})
aroundLatLngViaIP: search for entries around a given latitude/longitude (automatically computed from user IP address).
For example aroundLatLng=47.316669,5.016670).
You can specify the maximum distance in meters with the aroundRadius parameter (in meters) and the precision for ranking with aroundPrecision (for example if you set aroundPrecision=100, two objects that are distant of less than 100m will be considered as identical for "geo" ranking parameter).
At indexing, you should specify geoloc of an object with the _geoloc attribute (in the form {"_geoloc":{"lat":48.853409, "lng":2.348800}})
insideBoundingBox: search entries inside a given area defined by the two extreme points of a rectangle (defined by 4 floats: p1Lat,p1Lng,p2Lat,p2Lng).
For example insideBoundingBox=47.3165,4.9665,47.3424,5.0201).
At indexing, you should specify geoloc of an object with the _geoloc attribute (in the form {"_geoloc":{"lat":48.853409, "lng":2.348800}})
"name,address"), you can also use a string array encoding (for example ["name","address"] ). By default, all attributes are retrieved. You can also use * to retrieve all values when an attributesToRetrieve setting is specified for your index.["name","address"]). If an attribute has no match for the query, the raw value is returned. By default all indexed text attributes are highlighted. You can use * if you want to highlight all textual attributes. Numerical attributes are not highlighted. A matchLevel is returned for each highlighted attribute and can contain:attributeName:nbWords). Attributes are separated by a comma (Example: attributesToSnippet=name:10,content:10). attributesToSnippet: ["name:10","content:10"]). By default no snippet is computed.attributeName followed by operand followed by value. Supported operands are <, <=, =, > and >=.You can easily perform range queries via the : operator (equivalent to combining a >= and <= operand), for example numericFilters=price:10 to 1000.
You can also mix OR and AND operators. The OR operator is defined with a parenthesis syntax. For example (code=1 AND (price:[0-100] OR price:[1000-2000])) translates in encodeURIComponent("code=1,(price:0 to 10,price:1000 to 2000)").
You can also use a string array encoding (for example numericFilters: ["price>100","price<1000"]).
tags=tag1,(tag2,tag3) means tag1 AND (tag2 OR tag3). You can also use a string array encoding, for example tagFilters: ["tag1",["tag2","tag3"]] means tag1 AND (tag2 OR tag3).{"_tags":["tag1","tag2"]}).attributeName:value. To OR facets, you must add parentheses. For example: facetFilters=(category:Book,category:Movie),author:John%20Doe. You can also use a string array encoding (for example [["category:Book","category:Movie"],"author:John%20Doe"])."category,author" ). You can also use a JSON string array encoding (for example ["category","author"] ). Only attributes that have been added in attributesForFaceting index setting can be used in this parameter. You can also use * to perform faceting on all attributes specified in attributesForFaceting.maxValuesPerFacet=10 will retrieve max 10 values per facet.attributeForDistinct index setting is set. This feature is similar to the SQL "distinct" keyword: when enabled in a query with the distinct=1 parameter, all hits containing a duplicate value for the attributeForDistinct attribute are removed from results. For example, if the chosen attribute is show_name and several hits have the same value for show_name, then only the best one is kept and others are removed.
Note: This feature is disabled if the query string is empty and there isn't any tagFilters, nor any facetFilters, nor any numericFilters parameters.index = client.initIndex('contacts');
index.search('query string', function(success, content) {
if (!success) {
console.log('Error: ' + content.message);
return;
}
for (var h in content.hits) {
console.log('Hit(' + content.hits[h].objectID + '): ' + content.hits[h].toString());
}
});
index.search('query string', function(success, content) {
if (!success) {
console.log('Error: ' + content.message);
return;
}
for (var h in content.hits) {
console.log('Hit(' + content.hits[h].objectID + '): ' + content.hits[h].toString());
}
}, {attributesToRetrieve: 'firstname,lastname', hitsPerPage: 50});
index = client.initIndex('contacts');
index.search('query string')
.done(function(content) {
for (var h in content.hits) {
console.log('Hit(' + content.hits[h].objectID + '): ' + content.hits[h].toString());
}
})
.fail(function(content) {
console.log('Error: ' + content.message);
});
index.search('query string', { attributesToRetrieve: 'firstname,lastname', hitsPerPage: 50})
.done(function(content) {
for (var h in content.hits) {
console.log('Hit(' + content.hits[h].objectID + '): ' + content.hits[h].toString());
}
})
.fail(function(content) {
console.log('Error: ' + content.message);
});
index = client.initIndex('contacts');
index.search('query string')
.then(function(content) {
$scope.hits = content.hits;
}, function(content) {
console.log('Error: ' + content.message);
});
index.search('query string', { attributesToRetrieve: 'firstname,lastname', hitsPerPage: 50})
.then(function(content) {
$scope.hits = content.hits;
}, function(content) {
console.log('Error: ' + content.message);
});
The server response will look like:
{
"hits": [
{
"firstname": "Jimmie",
"lastname": "Barninger",
"objectID": "433",
"_highlightResult": {
"firstname": {
"value": "<em>Jimmie</em>",
"matchLevel": "partial"
},
"lastname": {
"value": "Barninger",
"matchLevel": "none"
},
"company": {
"value": "California <em>Paint</em> & Wlpaper Str",
"matchLevel": "partial"
}
}
}
],
"page": 0,
"nbHits": 1,
"nbPages": 1,
"hitsPerPage": 20,
"processingTimeMS": 1,
"query": "jimmie paint",
"params": "query=jimmie+paint&attributesToRetrieve=firstname,lastname&hitsPerPage=50"
}
You can send multiple queries with a single API call using a batch of queries:
// perform 3 queries in a single API call:
// - 1st query targets index `categories`
// - 2nd and 3rd queries target index `products`
client.startQueriesBatch();
client.addQueryInBatch('categories', $('#q').val(), { hitsPerPage: 3 });
client.addQueryInBatch('products', $('#q').val(), { hitsPerPage: 3, tagFilters: 'promotion' });
client.addQueryInBatch('products', $('#q').val(), { hitsPerPage: 10 });
client.sendQueriesBatch(searchMultiCallback);
function searchMultiCallback(success, content) {
if (success) {
var categories = content.results[0];
for (var i = 0; i < categories.hits.length; ++i) {
console.log(categories.hits[i]);
}
var products_promotion = content.results[1];
for (var i = 0; i < products_promotion.hits.length; ++i) {
console.log(products_promotion.hits[i]);
}
var products = content.results[2];
for (var i = 0; i < products.hits.length; ++i) {
console.log(products.hits[i]);
}
}
}
// perform 3 queries in a single API call:
// - 1st query targets index `categories`
// - 2nd and 3rd queries target index `products`
client.startQueriesBatch();
client.addQueryInBatch('categories', $('#q').val(), { hitsPerPage: 3 });
client.addQueryInBatch('products', $('#q').val(), { hitsPerPage: 3, tagFilters: 'promotion' });
client.addQueryInBatch('products', $('#q').val(), { hitsPerPage: 10 });
client.sendQueriesBatch().done(function(content) {
var categories = content.results[0];
for (var i = 0; i < categories.hits.length; ++i) {
console.log(categories.hits[i]);
}
var products_promotion = content.results[1];
for (var i = 0; i < products_promotion.hits.length; ++i) {
console.log(products_promotion.hits[i]);
}
var products = content.results[2];
for (var i = 0; i < products.hits.length; ++i) {
console.log(products.hits[i]);
}
});
// perform 3 queries in a single API call:
// - 1st query targets index `categories`
// - 2nd and 3rd queries target index `products`
client.startQueriesBatch();
client.addQueryInBatch('categories', $('#q').val(), { hitsPerPage: 3 });
client.addQueryInBatch('products', $('#q').val(), { hitsPerPage: 3, tagFilters: 'promotion' });
client.addQueryInBatch('products', $('#q').val(), { hitsPerPage: 10 });
client.sendQueriesBatch().then(function(content) {
var categories = content.results[0];
for (var i = 0; i < categories.hits.length; ++i) {
console.log(categories.hits[i]);
}
var products_promotion = content.results[1];
for (var i = 0; i < products_promotion.hits.length; ++i) {
console.log(products_promotion.hits[i]);
}
var products = content.results[2];
for (var i = 0; i < products.hits.length; ++i) {
console.log(products.hits[i]);
}
});
You can easily retrieve an object using its objectID and optionnaly a list of attributes you want to retrieve (using comma as separator):
// Retrieves all attributes
index.getObject('myID', function(success, content) {
console.log(content.objectID + ": ", content);
});
// Retrieves firstname and lastname attributes
index.getObject('myID', function(success, content) {
console.log(content.objectID + ": ", content);
}, "firstname,lastname");
// Retrieves only the firstname attribute
index.getObject('myID', function(success, content) {
console.log(content.objectID + ": ", content);
}, "firstname");
// Retrieves all attributes
index.getObject('myID').done(function(content) {
console.log(content.objectID + ": ", content);
});
// Retrieves firstname and lastname attributes
index.getObject('myID', "firstname,lastname").done(function(content) {
console.log(content.objectID + ": ", content);
});
// Retrieves all attributes
index.getObject('myID').then(function(content) {
console.log(content.objectID + ": ", content);
});
// Retrieves firstname and lastname attributes
index.getObject('myID', "firstname,lastname").then(function(content) {
console.log(content.objectID + ": ", content);
});
You can also retrieve a set of objects:
index.getObjects(['myObj1', 'myObj2'], function(success, content) {
// iterate over content
});
index.getObjects(['myObj1', 'myObj2']).done(function(content) {
// iterate over content
});
index.getObjects(['myObj1', 'myObj2']).then(function(content) {
// iterate over content
});
If you're using a secured API key (see backend client documentation), you need to set the associated tags:
var algolia = new AlgoliaSearch('YourApplicationID', 'YourPublicSecuredAPIKey');
algolia.setSecurityTags('(public,user_42)'); // must be same than those used at generation-time
If you've specified a userToken while generating your secured API key, you must also specified it at query-time:
var algolia = new AlgoliaSearch('YourApplicationID', 'YourPublicSecuredAPIKey');
algolia.setSecurityTags('(public,user_42)'); // must be same than those used at generation-time
algolia.setUserToken('user_42') // must be same than the one used at generation-time
In some use-cases, it can however be interesting to perform updates to the index directly in JavaScript, for example in an HTML5 mobile app. Therefore, just as for other languages, the JavaScript client is able to add, update or delete objects, or to modify index settings. For more details about updating an index from JavaScript, have a look at the algoliasearch.js source file to see details about each function. If you use the JavaScript client to update the index, you need to specify https as the protocol during the client initialization:
<script src="algoliasearch.min.js"></script>
<script>
client = new AlgoliaSearch('ApplicationID', 'API-Key', { method: 'https' });
...
FAQs
A fully-featured and blazing-fast JavaScript API client to interact with Algolia API.
The npm package algoliasearch receives a total of 1,664,751 weekly downloads. As such, algoliasearch popularity was classified as popular.
We found that algoliasearch demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 10 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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