# Amazon Kendra vs Elastic Enterprise Search

| Attribute | Amazon Kendra | Elastic Enterprise Search |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 46.2 (55% (medium)) | 45.3 (75% (high)) |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"air_gapped":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | An AWS-managed service that uses ML and natural language processing to deliver accurate search results and instant answers across structured and unstructured enterprise data. Integrates with generative AI and LLMs for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) applications. | A distributed, full-text and vector search engine that enables organizations to ingest, analyze, and act on data at scale. Available as open source, managed cloud service, or self-hosted with enterprise features for security monitoring, observability, and compliance requirements. |
| features.capabilities | `{"deployment_model":"managed_cloud_saas","generative_ai_answer_synthesis_rag":true,"bring_your_own_llm_byo_model_support":true,"multi_lingual_semantic_understanding":false,"source_system_rbac_permissions_mirroring":true,"hybrid_dense_and_sparse_lexical_reranking":false,"optical_character_recognition_ocr_for_pdfs":false,"admin_dashboard_for_search_analytics_and_gaps":true,"personalization_based_on_user_department_context":true,"pre_built_native_crawlers_for_100_plus_saas_apps":true}` | `{"pricing_model":"tiered_cloud_consumption","deployment_model":"hybrid","generative_ai_answer_synthesis_rag":true,"bring_your_own_llm_byo_model_support":true,"multi_lingual_semantic_understanding":true,"source_system_rbac_permissions_mirroring":true,"hybrid_dense_and_sparse_lexical_reranking":true,"admin_dashboard_for_search_analytics_and_gaps":true,"personalization_based_on_user_department_context":true,"pre_built_native_crawlers_for_100_plus_saas_apps":true}` |
| integrations.count | 14 | 19 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Amazon S3"},{"name":"Amazon RDS"},{"name":"Amazon FSx"},{"name":"Amazon Aurora"},{"name":"Box"},{"name":"Confluence Cloud"},{"name":"Atlassian Confluence Server"},{"name":"Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)"},{"name":"Alfresco On-Prem"},{"name":"Alfresco One"},{"name":"Microsoft SharePoint"},{"name":"Salesforce"},{"name":"ServiceNow"},{"name":"Google Drive"}]` | `[{"name":"Slack"},{"name":"Jira"},{"name":"ServiceNow"},{"name":"PagerDuty"},{"name":"Microsoft Teams"},{"name":"IBM Resilient"},{"name":"xMatters"},{"name":"Logstash"},{"name":"Beats"},{"name":"OpenTelemetry"},{"name":"Elastic Connectors"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"NVIDIA"},{"name":"Alibaba Cloud"},{"name":"IBM watsonx"},{"name":"Vectorize.io"},{"name":"AWS S3"},{"name":"Splunk"},{"name":"Webhooks"}]` |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true,"linux":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"usage","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/?nc2=h_pr_ec2","retrievedAt":"2026-08-21T11:09:58.587Z"}` | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free","features":["Distributed search and analytics engine","Basic authentication, RBAC, TLS encryption","OTel, Logstash, Beats integration","Lexical and semantic search","Community forum support"],"description":"Open source, self-hosted Elasticsearch with community support","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Elastic Cloud (Managed)","features":["Production-focused support with weekend coverage","Hosted on major cloud providers","Cluster analysis and optimization guidance"],"description":"Fully managed deployment on AWS, GCP, or Azure with limited support","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise Self-Managed","features":["24/7 expert support (1-15 minute response SLA)","GDPR, HIPAA, FedRAMP compliance controls","Searchable snapshots for reduced storage costs","AI/ML features: ELSER semantic search, Jina multilingual embeddings, anomaly detection","Elastic Workflows for incident response automation","Field and document-level security","SAML/SSO and audit logging","Elastic Agent Builder for RAG applications","Third-party LLM inference management"],"description":"Self-hosted on your infrastructure with advanced security, compliance, and AI capabilities","contactSales":true}],"summary":"Free open source tier. Managed cloud from $0. Enterprise self-managed pricing available upon request.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.elastic.co/pricing/self-managed","retrievedAt":"2026-08-21T11:04:49.710Z","freeTrialDays":14,"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | low | low |
| pricing.transparent | no | no |
| reliability.sla_pct | - | 99.95 |
| security.fedramp | yes | yes |
| security.gdpr | yes | yes |
| security.hipaa | yes | yes |
| security.pci | yes | - |

## Capabilities (AI Enterprise Search)

| Capability | Amazon Kendra | Elastic Enterprise Search |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Capabilities** |  |  |
| Deployment model | Managed cloud saas | Hybrid |
| Source system RBAC permissions mirroring | ✓ | ✓ |
| Generative AI answer synthesis rag | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hybrid dense and sparse lexical reranking | ✗ | ✓ |
| Pre built native crawlers for 100 plus saas apps | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi lingual semantic understanding | ✗ | ✓ |
| Personalization based on user department context | ✓ | ✓ |
| Optical character recognition OCR for pdfs | ✗ | - |
| Admin dashboard for search analytics and gaps | ✓ | ✓ |
| Bring your own LLM byo model support | ✓ | ✓ |
| SOC2 type ii | - | - |
| HIPAA compliance for medical records | - | - |
| Pricing model | - | Tiered cloud consumption |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T17:00:43.463Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*