The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

Typesense is truly open source search (Interview)

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Sep 9, 2022

In this engaging conversation, Jason Bosco, co-founder and CEO of Typesense, explains why they champion open source in the realm of search engines. He compares Typesense to giants like Algolia and ElasticSearch, emphasizing its user-friendly approach. Listeners will discover the journey of Typesense from inception to open-sourcing, including the challenges faced and the importance of user feedback. Bosco also touches on the significance of avoiding venture capital to maintain their mission, making a compelling case for accessible and efficient search solutions.

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ANECDOTE

Elasticsearch Frustrations

Jason Bosco and his co-founder were frustrated with Elasticsearch's complexity.
They needed to search customer data, which seemed simple, but Elasticsearch required extensive fine-tuning.

INSIGHT

In-Memory Index Trade-off

Typesense bets on in-memory indices for faster search, unlike disk-based Elasticsearch.
This trade-off prioritizes speed for smaller datasets, recognizing RAM's decreasing cost.

ANECDOTE

Algolia's Price Hikes

Algolia's rising prices drove users to Typesense, prompting feature parity requests.
This positioned Typesense as an open-source Algolia alternative, appealing to developers.

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This week we’re joined by Jason Bosco, co-founder and CEO of Typesense — the open source Algolia alternative and the easier to use ElasticSearch alternative. For years we’ve used Algolia as our search engine, so we come to this conversation with skin in the game and the scars to prove it. Jason shared how he and his co-founder got started on Typesense, why and how they are “all in” on open source, the options and the paths developers can take to add search to their project, how Typesense compares to ElasticSearch and Algolia, he walks us through getting started, the story of Typesense Cloud, and why they have resisted Venture Capital.

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Featuring:

Jason Bosco – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Jerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!