Relevanssi – A Better Search for WordPress Plugin Directory
Relevanssi – A Better Search is the #2 ranked search app on WordPress, with a 4.8 average rating from 405 reviews, as of Aug 31, 2026.
Relevanssi – A Better Search is a WordPress Plugin Directory app by Christoph Vielgrader. With a rating of 4.8★ from 405 reviews, it currently ranks #2 in the Search category.
AppRanks data: Relevanssi – A Better Search ranks #2 in Search on WordPress Plugin Directory, placing it in the top 1% of that category.
AppRanks verdict
Generated from live marketplace data — refreshed daily
Relevanssi – A Better Search is a category-leading WordPress app with a growing review traction. It is listed in the Search category on WordPress Plugin Directory, which AppRanks treats as the canonical taxonomy node for ranking and competitor comparison. 405 reviews put it in the early-traction tier — useful for early-stage stores willing to be on the leading edge. Early-traction review counts are sensitive to single launch periods or feature events, so a 30-day re-check before bigger commitments often resolves whether the trend is sustained. Paid-only pricing means evaluating fit on the marketplace listing or via the developer's documentation before installing. AppRanks tracks rating, review count, pricing tier, and category position daily — the figures on this page reflect the most recent scrape from the canonical WordPress Plugin Directory listing.
Pros
- +High average rating (4.8★) signals consistent merchant satisfaction
- +Published by Christoph Vielgrader — established developer track record
Cons
- −No declared third-party integrations on the listing — verify compatibility with your existing tools before installing
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How Relevanssi – A Better Search works
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Relevanssi replaces the standard WordPress search with a better search engine, with lots of features and configurable options. You’ll get better results, better presentation of results – your users will thank you.
This is the free version of Relevanssi. There’s also Relevanssi Premium, which has added features. For more information about Premium, see Relevanssi.com.
Do note that using Relevanssi may require large amounts (hundreds of megabytes) of database space (for a reasonable estimate, multiply the size of your wp_posts database table by three). If your hosting setup has a limited amount of space for database tables, using Relevanssi may cause problems. In those cases use of Relevanssi cannot be recommended.
Key features
Search results sorted in the order of relevance, not by date.
Fuzzy matching: match partial words, if complete words don’t match.
Find documents matching either just one search term (OR query) or require all words to appear (AND query).
Search for phrases with quotes, for example “search phrase”.
Create custom excerpts that show where the hit was made, with the search terms highlighted.
Highlight search terms in the documents when user clicks through search results.
Search comments, tags, categories and custom fields.
Multisite friendly.
bbPress support.
Gutenberg friendly.
Advanced features
Adjust the weighting for titles, tags and comments.
Log queries, show most popular queries and recent queries with no hits.
Restrict searches to categories and tags using a hidden variable or plugin settings.
Index custom post types and custom taxonomies.
Index the contents of shortcodes.
Google-style “Did you mean?” suggestions based on successful user searches.
Support for WPML multi-language plugin and Polylang.
Support for s2member membership plugin, Members, Groups, Simple Membership and other membership plugins.
Advanced filtering to help hacking the search results the way you want.
Search result throttling to improve performance on large databases.
Disable indexing of post content and post titles with a simple filter hook.
Premium features (only in Relevanssi Premium)
Indexing attachment content (PDF, Office, Open Office).
Improved spelling correction in “Did you mean?” suggestions.
Searching across multiple sites in the same multisite installation.
Search and index user profiles.
Search and index taxonomy term pages (categories, tags, custom taxonomies).
Search and index arbitrary columns in wp_posts MySQL table.
Assign weights to any post types and taxonomies.
Assign extra weight to new posts.
Let the user choose between AND and OR searches, use + and – operator (AND and NOT).
Export and import settings.
WP CLI commands.
Related posts.
Redirects for searches.
Thanks
Cristian Damm for tag indexing, comment indexing, post/page exclusion and general helpfulness.
Marcus Dalgren for UTF-8 fixing.
Warren Tape for 2.5.5 fixes.
Mohib Ebrahim for relentless bug hunting.
John Calahan for extensive 4.0 beta testing.
Category rankings
As of Sep 4, 2026See 90-day rank history for each category
Track daily rank changes, category shifts, and position volatility.
Keyword rankings
Relevanssi – A Better Search ranks for 1 keywords across WordPress Plugin Directory. Here are the top 1:
- Rank #599
Competitors & alternatives
Relevanssi – A Better Search doesn't have curated competitor matchups yet. Other tracked search apps on WordPress:
Where Relevanssi – A Better Search stands in the Search category
Relevanssi – A Better Search ranks #2 of 536 apps in the Search category, placing it in the top 1% of the listing.
Frequently asked questions
What is Relevanssi – A Better Search?
Relevanssi – A Better Search is an app for WordPress. It currently holds a 4.8-star rating from 405 merchant reviews, and AppRanks has been tracking its public marketplace data on the refresh cadence published in our methodology. It is listed under the Search category on AppRanks, where you can see its current category position, review-velocity trend, and how it compares against the top alternatives in the same space. Developed by Christoph Vielgrader.
Who uses Relevanssi – A Better Search?
Currently around 100,000 active stores have installed Relevanssi – A Better Search. Its review base of 405 suggests adoption is concentrated in growth-stage and mid-market stores. It is part of the Search category on WordPress.
Where does Relevanssi – A Better Search rank on WordPress?
Relevanssi – A Better Search currently sits at position #2 in the Search category on WordPress. That places it in the top 0% of 536 apps tracked in the same category. Category positions are read from the live marketplace ranking and refresh on each scrape, so the number you see here reflects the most recent crawl rather than a long-running average.