Can we build enterprise search in our own cloud or infrastructure?

Yes, depending on the chosen search platform and deployment model. We can design systems for customer-controlled cloud, private, or self-managed environments, with architecture and operational responsibilities defined before implementation.

Can a custom enterprise search solution cost less than Glean or Coveo?

Potentially, particularly when your needs are focused and you have the engineering capacity to operate a custom solution. The comparison must include licensing, connector development, infrastructure, security, maintenance, upgrades, and support. Searchplex can help evaluate the economics against your actual requirements.

Do we need to replace our existing Elasticsearch or OpenSearch deployment?

Not necessarily. Search quality and performance problems can often originate in data modeling, query construction, retrieval design, or ranking rather than the search engine itself. We assess the current system before recommending optimization, partial modernization, or migration.

Enterprise Search Consulting · Custom Search Engineering · AI Search

Enterprise search you own and control.

Enterprise search consulting and engineering, built around your data, your users, and your infrastructure.

We help teams that are replacing an expensive search platform, implementing search across enterprise knowledge, or fixing a system that no longer returns the right results. We build the retrieval capabilities your workload needs with a focused architecture.

Compare a custom build and platform cost on your actual workload
Deploy in your own cloud or VPC where the technology allows
Tune relevance to your users and business rules

Architecture advice across Elasticsearch, OpenSearch and Vespa · Specialist search engineering · Production experience

Do you need an enterprise search platform—or just better search?

Commercial search platforms offer extensive capabilities out of the box. For organizations that need comprehensive integrations, ready-made workplace experiences, and fully managed operations, they can be a good fit.

A managed platform may fit when…

You need many ready-made integrations and a workplace search interface.
You want the vendor to operate and support the search platform.
Its search controls and deployment model meet your requirements.

A custom architecture may fit when…

A focused set of sources or workflows needs specialized retrieval.
Your team can own the integrations and operating model.
Data, deployment, or relevance requirements exceed a platform's fit.

The decision weighs search quality, integration effort, operating responsibility, and total cost together.

What changes when you own your search architecture?

Control your costs

Evaluate infrastructure, licensing, integration, and operating expenses against your actual workload. Avoid paying for capabilities you don't use, where a purpose-built approach is economically justified.

Own your relevance

Control indexing, retrieval, ranking, filters, and query behavior. Improve search quality around your users and business requirements where a platform's controls do not reach them.

Deploy in your environment

Evaluate self-hosted and private-cloud enterprise search alongside managed options. Run search in your own cloud account, private VPC, or self-managed infrastructure when supported by the chosen technology. Keep control over deployment, data residency, security architecture, and operations.

Build what you need

Start with the sources, workflows, and search experiences that matter. Extend the system into semantic search, hybrid retrieval, RAG, or other applications when there is a clear need.

The objective is to engineer the search system your organization actually needs.

Considering alternatives to Glean, Coveo, or your existing search stack?

Replacing a managed enterprise search product can offer greater flexibility—but it also transfers responsibilities to your engineering team.

Connectors, permissions, content synchronization, user experience, upgrades, monitoring, and support all have costs.

Searchplex helps you make an evidence-based decision before committing to a replacement.

We assess:

Functionality: Which existing features are essential, optional, or unused?
Search quality: Can the proposed architecture meet your relevance and retrieval requirements?
Total cost of ownership: How do subscription, infrastructure, engineering, integration, and operating costs compare?
Control and security: Which deployment and data-governance requirements must be met?
Migration feasibility: What must be rebuilt, preserved, validated, or changed?

Whether you're evaluating Glean or Coveo alternatives or modernizing an Elasticsearch or OpenSearch implementation, we help determine the right technical direction.

We compare cost and search quality using representative workload data before recommending a path.

Explore the Search Stack Audit →

What we engineer

Enterprise search architecture & implementation

Custom search applications and retrieval systems designed around your data, queries, users, and operational requirements. From architecture selection to indexing pipelines, query serving, search APIs, and production deployment.

Data integration & indexing

Connect and index enterprise documents, databases, knowledge platforms, and application data through appropriately scoped integrations. Handle content processing, metadata, incremental updates, permissions, freshness, and versioned information.

Full-text, semantic & hybrid search

Combine keyword precision with semantic retrieval, structured filters, multilingual search, and advanced ranking. Choose the retrieval strategy that fits each workload.

Search relevance & performance optimization

Diagnose poor results, inconsistent ranking, slow queries, scaling constraints, and expensive retrieval architectures. Evaluate improvements using representative queries, relevance judgments, benchmarks, and regression checks.

AI-powered enterprise search & RAG

Build retrieval foundations for enterprise knowledge search, grounded AI answers, and agentic applications. Preserve source authority, access controls, relevance, and freshness as information moves into AI-powered experiences.

See how these challenges appear in our Workplace Knowledge Retrieval use case.

For an existing system, explore Search Modernization or Relevance Engineering. For grounded answers over enterprise content, see Enterprise RAG.

Search engineering backed by production experience

Searchplex brings specialist experience from search-dependent products where retrieval quality, precision, and reliability are central to the user experience.

These examples demonstrate search engineering and modernization experience.

A specialist search engineering partner

Searchplex designs and improves enterprise retrieval systems with your team.

We work with your organization to design and improve the underlying search system.

Our work spans Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, Vespa, lexical and vector retrieval, and custom ranking architectures. We are also an official Vespa.ai implementation partner, with published experience in Vespa architecture, migration, and deployment.

We disclose that partnership when assessing platform options and explain how each recommendation fits your requirements.

How we engage

01
Assess
Understand your current systems, requirements, search quality, and technical or economic constraints.
02
Validate
Compare options with a focused architecture assessment or proof of concept using representative data and agreed success criteria.
03
Build or improve
Implement the appropriate search architecture, migration, retrieval improvements, or production optimizations.
04
Hand over
Document the implementation, evaluation results, operational trade-offs, and responsibilities so your team can evolve the system.

A first scoped engagement gives your team a source and system inventory, agreed search-quality criteria, an assessment of viable options, and a recommended next step with delivery risks and responsibilities. Start with a Search Stack Audit when an existing system needs diagnosis, or a Retrieval Proof of Concept when a new architecture needs validation against representative data.

We focus on the search and retrieval engineering layer. Application interfaces, source-system integrations, and broader enterprise IT responsibilities are agreed during scoping.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Ways of working

Work with us the way that suits your team

Either way, you own the result, and the aim is a team that can run it without us.

Project delivery

Searchplex delivers the project

Our engineers handle day-to-day delivery within Searchplex. We meet regularly with your business and leadership stakeholders to share progress and agree on key decisions.

Embedded

Specialists paired with your engineers

We lead the retrieval work inside your team and processes, so the expertise stays with you.

Start here

Build search around your requirements.

You may need a new enterprise search implementation, better retrieval quality, a private deployment, or a more economical alternative to your current platform.

Let's establish what your search system needs to do, what it should cost, and which architecture makes sense.

Start with a focused technical conversation to scope the options.

Explore the Search Stack Audit