Installation

Requirements

  • WordPress 6.0 or higher
  • PHP 8.1 or higher
  • A supported search engine (MeiliSearch, with more coming soon)

Installing the Plugin

  1. Go to Plugins → Add New in your WordPress admin
  2. Search for "CelerSearch"
  3. Click Install Now, then Activate

You can also browse the plugin on the WordPress.org plugin directory.

Manual Installation

  1. Download the latest release zip from GitHub Releases
  2. Upload it via Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin (or extract the celersearch folder into /wp-content/plugins/)
  3. Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu

Setting Up a Search Engine

CelerSearch requires a search engine to power your searches. Currently, MeiliSearch is supported with additional providers coming soon.

The plugin's admin welcome notice surfaces the same chooser on every admin screen until you pick one.

Recommended

Option 1: CelerSearch Cloud (Managed)

The quickest way to get going. CelerSearch runs Meilisearch for you so the plugin is the only thing you maintain. Plans start at $12/mo — see CelerSearch Cloud for plans, provisioning, backups, and upgrades.

  1. Sign up at celersearch.com
  2. Create a new search instance
  3. Copy the instance URL and API Key into CelerSearch → Services

What's included

  • Updates — Meilisearch is patched on our side
  • Backups — automated snapshots of your indices
  • SSL + security — TLS, firewalled network, isolated tenants
  • Tuned for WordPress — defaults optimised for content search
  • Expert support — a human when something breaks
  • Funds the plugin — choosing Cloud directly supports development of new integrations and releases

Option 2: Self-Hosted

For teams that prefer to own the infrastructure. You run Meilisearch; CelerSearch just points at it. For server sizing and hardware guidance, refer to the Meilisearch documentation.

What you take on

  • Running and updating Meilisearch (Docker or binary)
  • Backups of the meili_data directory
  • TLS termination via a reverse proxy (nginx/Apache/Caddy)
  • Firewall / port configuration
  • Monitoring and the 3am page when something goes sideways

Using Docker:

Shell
docker run -d \
  --name meilisearch \
  -p 7700:7700 \
  -v $(pwd)/meili_data:/meili_data \
  -e MEILI_MASTER_KEY='your-secure-master-key-min-16-chars' \
  -e MEILI_ENV='production' \
  getmeili/meilisearch:latest

Manual Installation:

Shell
curl -L https://install.meilisearch.com | sh
./meilisearch --master-key="your-secure-master-key" --env="production"

Production Considerations

Self-hosting requires:

  • Reverse proxy (nginx/Apache) with SSL termination
  • Secure master key (minimum 16 characters)
  • Regular backups of the meili_data directory
  • Monitoring and maintenance
  • Security updates

See the Meilisearch documentation for complete production setup and server sizing guidance.

Meilisearch Version Requirements

Core CelerSearch features work with any reasonably recent Meilisearch release. Two features have specific version requirements:

FeatureMeilisearch version
Keyword search, indexing, filters, autocompleteWorks broadly across recent versions
AI Semantic Search1.13+ out of the box, or 1.3–1.12 with the vectorStore experimental flag enabled
Dynamic Search Rules1.41+ with the dynamicSearchRules experimental flag enabled

CelerSearch Cloud instances are kept on recent engine versions — see Engine Upgrades.

Next Steps

After installation:

  1. Configure your search service — connect the plugin to Cloud or your self-hosted Meilisearch
  2. Quick Start — create your first index and wire it into WordPress