Ajax Search Lite vs SearchWP
Compare WordPress plugins and tools side by side. Pick products with “Compare” in the software directory.
| Feature | Ajax Search Lite v4.14.7 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.8/5 Visit Details | SearchWP v4.6.1.1 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Paid Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 70,000+ | — |
| Last updated | October 19, 2026 | — |
| Editions | Ajax Search Lite · Ajax Search Pro ($) | SearchWP ($) |
| Pros | Live results as visitors type; Custom post types, custom fields and categories searched; Free, with WooCommerce price fields in results | Indexes posts, taxonomies, attachments, comments and users; Fuzzy, partial and synonym matching with stopword control; Search forms placed by shortcode or Gutenberg block |
| Cons | Pro features need a paid licence; Upgrade prompts appear in the admin menu and sidebar; Google keyword suggestions call an external Google endpoint | Paid licence required; this code has no free edition; Weekly usage tracking runs unless a filter disables it |
| Mentioned in our posts | 1 | 1 |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Live AJAX search results as the visitor types, Search by custom fields, Category and taxonomy search, Google keyword suggestions, Cached search results with hourly retention cron, WooCommerce price field in results, Upgrade to Pro menu item | Index posts, taxonomies, attachments, comments and users ($), Fuzzy and partial matching ($), Synonyms and stopwords ($), Search form Gutenberg block ($), searchwp_template shortcode for results ($), Weekly email summaries ($), Page builder search blocks ($) |
| Integrations | ||
| E-commerce | WooCommerce | WooCommerce ($) |
| Plugins | WPML, Polylang, BuddyPress, Divi | Divi ($), bbPress ($), WPML ($), Polylang ($), Elementor ($), Advanced Custom Fields ($), WP All Import ($) |
| Other | Google Suggest | — |
| Requires WordPress | 3.5 | 5.3 |
| Requires PHP | 7.4 | — |
| Tested up to | 7.1 | 7.1 |
| Phones home | No | Yes |
| External services | suggestqueries.google.com | searchwp.com, plugin.searchwp.com, swpusage.com |
| Blocks | 1 | 3 |
| Shortcodes | — | 2 |