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Mellisearch Laravel Package
statamic-rad-pack/mellisearch
A Statamic addon that brings Meilisearch to your site, delivering fast, typo-tolerant full-text search and filtering across your content. Index entries automatically, then query results with a simple, developer-friendly API.
Meilisearch search driver for Statamic.
Frequently asked questions about Mellisearch
- What is statamic-rad-pack/mellisearch and what does it do?
- It is a Statamic addon that registers a Meilisearch search driver inside Statamic's existing search abstraction, alongside the built-in local and template drivers. Content is indexed automatically into Meilisearch, giving you fast, typo-tolerant full-text search and filtering across your entries. You define indexes in config/statamic/search.php, populate them with Statamic's search index commands, and query them through Statamic's Search facade. It is aimed at content-heavy, read-dominant Statamic sites where search relevance is a product feature rather than a checkbox.
- How do I install and configure the Meilisearch driver for Statamic?
- Install it with Composer, publish the addon configuration, and set your MEILISEARCH_HOST, MEILISEARCH_KEY and index prefix environment variables. You then declare your indexes in config/statamic/search.php and run an initial index build using Statamic's search index commands. Meilisearch itself runs as a separate service, either a self-hosted container or Meilisearch Cloud. The install is mechanically simple; the real effort is verifying index settings and result quality against your actual content.
- Is this a Laravel Scout driver, and does it index Eloquent models?
- No. This is a Statamic-specific addon that plugs into Statamic's search abstraction, not a general-purpose Laravel Scout driver. It only covers content that lives inside Statamic, so if your searchable corpus includes Eloquent models you will need a separate solution for those. It is also a poor fit for multi-tenant applications that need per-tenant search scoping, since that is not something the addon addresses.
- Which Laravel, Statamic and PHP versions does this addon support?
- Support is a three-deep chain: your Laravel version must be supported by the Statamic release you run, which in turn must be supported by the addon version you install. Version 4.1.0 extends the top of that chain to Laravel 13, but you can only adopt it if the matching Statamic release also supports Laravel 13 and the addon declares that constraint. Check the addon's composer.json for the exact PHP floor before assuming it matches your fleet. Because Statamic majors track Laravel majors and addon majors track Statamic majors, plan for a coordinated bump roughly once a year.
- How does indexing work and do I need to rebuild the index after changes?
- Indexes are declared in config/statamic/search.php and populated using Statamic's search index commands, so entries are pushed into Meilisearch rather than queried live from the database. Which fields end up searchable depends on Statamic's field-level searchability settings and how they map onto Meilisearch's index schema. A routine addon minor upgrade such as 4.0.0 to 4.1.0 requires no index rebuild and no config republish. If you change which fields are searchable, filterable or sortable, plan on reindexing.
- How do I query search results from my Statamic templates or code?
- Queries go through Statamic's Search facade, for example Search::index('your_index')->search('term'), which keeps the calling code the same as any other Statamic search driver. That means you can swap between local search and Meilisearch without rewriting your templates. The addon is described as exposing a simple, developer-friendly API, so most of your work is in index configuration rather than query plumbing.
- Can I customise filterable and sortable attributes or override Meilisearch index settings?
- Statamic's search config exposes the basic field-level searchability settings, but Meilisearch distinguishes between searchable, filterable and sortable attributes, and those concepts do not map one-to-one. Before committing, verify whether the addon lets you push additional index settings so you can mark attributes filterable or sortable beyond what Statamic's config exposes. If your UI needs faceting or custom sort orders, test this early rather than discovering the gap after launch. Meilisearch's ranking rules also differ materially from local search, so relevance tuning is a separate exercise from schema configuration.
- How do I evaluate search relevance before adopting Meilisearch over local search?
- Validate against real content in a non-production environment first, because Meilisearch's typo tolerance and ranking rules behave very differently from Statamic's local or template search. Stand up Meilisearch, publish the config, define your indexes, run the initial index build, then compare result sets for your actual top queries. Check which fields are searchable, which are filterable and sortable, and how Statamic's field-level settings translate into the Meilisearch schema. Sign-off should be based on observed result quality, not on a successful install.
- What happens to my site search if Meilisearch goes down, and is there a fallback?
- Meilisearch becomes a hard dependency for any search-backed UI, which introduces a new failure domain directly into the request path. Decide up front what the escape hatch looks like, for example temporarily switching the search driver back to Statamic's local driver under incident conditions. Because queries go through Statamic's Search facade, reverting the driver is mostly configuration rather than application code, but you should rehearse it. Also confirm your hosting or Meilisearch Cloud choice satisfies your data-residency posture.
- Is upgrading from 4.0.0 to 4.1.0 safe, and how much maintenance should I budget?
- The 4.0.0 to 4.1.0 upgrade is a semver minor containing a single pull request, with no config changes, no deprecations and no migration steps, so risk is effectively zero on your current Laravel version. It only expands the supported version matrix, so it can ship in your next routine dependency window without an index rebuild. Longer term, budget for a coordinated Laravel, Statamic and addon bump roughly annually. Note that this is a single-maintainer RAD Pack addon, so assess the vendor's track record and whether a commercial support path is available to you.
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