Adding Search to Rails with MeiliSearch

There are many ways to add search functionality to a Rails application. While many Rails developers choose to use the native search functionality built into popular databases like MySQL and Postgres, others need more flexible or feature rich search functionality. ElasticSearch is probably the most well known option available but it has its own issues. Firstly, it is a resource hungry beast. To run ElasticSearch properly in production, you need a few beefy servers. Secondly, getting ElasticSearch to return relevant search results is not easy. There are many options to configure and knobs to turn. This adds a lot of flexibility, but takes away from simplicity.