Relevanssi vs Ivory Search: Relevance Engine vs Custom Search Forms (2026)

Relevanssi and Ivory Search both extend WordPress search beyond posts and pages, but their strongest ideas differ. Relevanssi is a relevance-focused indexing engine. Ivory Search is built around creating multiple search forms, deciding what each form includes or excludes, and placing those forms throughout the site.

Compare	RelevanssiFree; Premium €120/year for unlimited sites or €402 permanent license Remove	Ivory SearchFree; Pro $19.99/year; Pro Plus $49.99/year for 1 site Remove
Pricing model	Freemium	Freemium
Starting price	Free; Premium €120/year for unlimited sites or €402 permanent license	Free; Pro $19.99/year; Pro Plus $49.99/year for 1 site
Free version	Yes	Yes
Sites included	Unlimited sites on Premium	1 site at listed pricing; 5-site and 25-site options available
Lifetime option	Yes	Yes
Refund policy	30-day money-back guarantee	30-day money-back guarantee
Setup level	Intermediate	Beginner-friendly
WordPress.org rating	4.8/5 (405)	4.9/5 (1,561)
Active installs	100K+	90K+
Best for	WordPress sites that want stronger relevance, fuzzy matching, custom fields, synonyms and configurable search without paying for the core plugin.	Sites that want multiple independently configured search forms, AJAX search, custom content rules and a low-cost upgrade path.
Not ideal for	The index can require substantial database space; Premium is required for PDF/document indexing, multisite search, user profiles and some advanced features.	Some advanced ordering, WooCommerce SKU, stemming, media-file and exclusion controls require Pro or Pro Plus; it is less focused on relevance tuning than SearchWP.
Tested version	4.28.3	5.5.18
Last reviewed	2026-09-25	2026-09-25
Features
Live AJAX / instant results	Add-on Live AJAX is provided through the separate free Relevanssi Live Ajax Search plugin.	Yes
Custom field / meta search	Yes	Yes
Taxonomy / category search	Yes	Yes
PDF / document content indexing	Paid plan Full text inside PDFs and other documents is a Premium feature.	Limited Ivory Search searches attachment/media metadata; it is not positioned as full PDF body-text indexing like SearchWP or Relevanssi Premium.
Fuzzy / typo-tolerant search	Yes	Yes
Keyword stemming	Paid plan	Paid plan Keyword stemming is listed in Pro Plus.
Synonyms	Yes	Yes
Relevance weighting / result priority	Yes	Paid plan
Search analytics / query logging	Paid plan Comprehensive search logging and analytics are listed in Premium.	Limited The product focuses on customizable search forms and AJAX/live search rather than a deep dedicated search-analytics suite.
WooCommerce product search	Yes	Yes
SKU / identifier search	Yes	Paid plan WooCommerce SKU search is listed in Pro Plus.
Product attribute search	Yes	Yes
Facets / front-end filters	Limited	Limited
Multiple search engines / forms	Limited	Yes
Custom post type search	Yes	Yes
Multisite search	Paid plan Cross-site Multisite search is Premium.	Limited
Custom database table search	No Relevanssi indexes posts, users and taxonomy terms; arbitrary external/custom database tables are not its normal data model.	No

One engine vs many search forms

Relevanssi replaces the default WordPress search engine and lets administrators influence how different fields and content types contribute to relevance. It is ideal when the goal is one consistently better search layer across the site.

Ivory Search can create unlimited search forms even in its free tier and configure each separately. One form can search products, another posts, another selected custom post types or taxonomies. That form-level architecture is often the decisive feature on complex sites.

Content depth and document search

Relevanssi Free searches custom fields, taxonomies, excerpts, comments and shortcodes. Premium can index the text inside PDFs and other documents, plus user profiles and taxonomy terms.

Ivory Search can search media and attachments by title, caption and description and can restrict file types. That is useful for finding files, but it should not be confused with full PDF body-text indexing. For a document library where the words inside the PDF must be searchable, Relevanssi Premium has the clearer feature.

WooCommerce and product discovery

Both can search WooCommerce products. Relevanssi can search product custom fields, categories, tags and attributes and can include SKU data when configured. Its strength is relevance control across the whole site.

Ivory Search makes product-specific search forms easy to scope and can include or exclude categories, attributes and custom fields. Pro Plus adds SKU search and out-of-stock exclusion. For stores that need multiple specialized forms more than deep ranking control, that structure can be easier to maintain.

Fuzzy matching, stemming and synonyms

Relevanssi provides partial/fuzzy matching and synonyms in its search engine. Premium adds English stemming and more advanced relevance features.

Ivory Search supports partial-word/fuzzy-style search in Free, synonyms, and adds keyword stemming in Pro Plus. The practical difference is control depth: Relevanssi exposes more relevance-engine tuning, while Ivory Search packages many choices around each form.

Pricing

Relevanssi Premium is €120/year or €402 permanent, both for unlimited sites. The free version already covers a large part of ordinary content search.

Ivory Search has a free Starter tier, Pro at $19.99/year and Pro Plus at $49.99/year for one site, with larger site-count options and one-time pricing available. Ivory Search is therefore cheaper for many form-scoping needs, while Relevanssi Premium is priced more like a full relevance engine with unlimited-site licensing.

Analytics and improvement workflow

Relevanssi Premium includes deeper search logging and analytics. Ivory Search focuses more on search-form construction and behavior than a dedicated search-analytics suite.

If search analytics are a core requirement, decide where that data will live before launch. Google Analytics events can measure interaction, but failed-query and ranking analysis is often easier when the search engine itself logs query outcomes.

Which approach fits?

Consider Relevanssi when one site-wide relevance engine should understand complex content deeply. Consider Ivory Search when multiple tailored search forms and placement flexibility are more important than advanced relevance scoring.

Multiple forms create governance questions

Ivory Search makes it easy to create many forms, but each new form creates another configuration that can drift. Document which content types and exclusions each form owns. Otherwise two visually similar search boxes may return different results for reasons editors cannot explain.

Relevanssi centralizes more search logic in one engine, which reduces form-level drift but increases the importance of global weighting decisions. Choose the governance model your team can actually maintain.

Search forms should have explicit ownership

Ivory Search encourages multiple purpose-built forms, while Relevanssi encourages one strong relevance layer that can feed different templates. On a growing site, name each form by business purpose, not by location: “product search,” “documentation search,” or “member search” is easier to maintain than “header search 2.” Define who approves source changes and exclusions. Search configuration becomes hard to audit when forms are duplicated to solve one-off layout requests.

Search governance matters more as forms multiply

Every separately configured form creates another place where exclusions, WooCommerce rules, synonyms and post-type choices can diverge. Review all public search forms whenever a new content type, taxonomy or commerce field is introduced. Relevanssi centralizes more ranking logic, while Ivory Search distributes more behavior across forms; either model works if the team knows where search rules live and treats them as part of the content architecture.

Multiple search forms need a shared vocabulary policy

Ivory Search makes it easy to create purpose-specific forms, but users still expect the same business language to work across the site. If “hoodie,” “sweatshirt” and an internal product term are treated differently in three forms, the site feels inconsistent even when each form is technically configured correctly. Relevanssi centralizes more of that vocabulary through synonyms and relevance rules; Ivory Search distributes more behavior across form configurations. Maintain one documented list of important synonyms, exclusions and taxonomy decisions, then apply it consistently where each form needs it. This becomes especially important on stores, directories and knowledge bases where new categories and attributes are added frequently by different teams.

FAQs