A search solution for a WordPress site on the WPVIP Platform should be selected based on several criteria including the volume of search requests made to the site, the level of customization needed, the required speed for performance, and more. Sites with lower traffic and less complex requirements might perform well with the Core WordPress search functionality already built into their site. For sites that require greater customization and performance, Jetpack Search and Enterprise Search are Elasticsearch options that can be enabled.
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Compare the options and features between the two Elasticsearch powered options available to applications hosted on WordPress VIP: Jetpack Search, and WordPress VIP’s Enterprise Search.
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The standard search functionality of a WordPress installation makes use of MySQL. MySQL supports various full-text search options. The WordPress Search box will result in a request that uses the s query argument: /?s=onion for example. This translates in code to a WPDB object where is_search() is true, and the actual DB query uses very default SQL: The result is fairly basic, matching as many posts via the three columns post_title, post_excerpt, and post_content, and ranking by post_title matches and then post_date. With the WPDB class’s hooks and filters, search can be further customized and optimized to give different weights…
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Jetpack Search is a paid upgrade to the Jetpack plugin that improves the search experience for WordPress sites. Jetpack Search uses Elasticsearch for indexing and searching, typically without any need for a site owner to add custom code. When enabled on a VIP site, Jetpack Instant Search syncs content changes to a private cache site located within Automattic’s data centers, and uses that cached copy to perform indexing. When search queries are performed on the VIP site, the database query is sent to a public endpoint which only returns results for publicly available data. Enable Jetpack Search To enable Jetpack…
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Elasticsearch (ES) is an open-source search and analytics engine that powers Jetpack Search and WordPress VIP’s Enterprise Search. When Elasticsearch is powering a site’s search, it continually indexes the site’s content. During publishing actions, action hooks capture the change events and identify the changed data to be indexed. Elasticsearch has its own environment and data store, interacting via REST API requests. As search requests are made on a site, API calls tell ES what to search for and how to weigh the results. These communications occur asynchronously, so there may be a slight delay between when a change is made in WordPress…
Last updated: October 07, 2025