Skip to main content

MeiliSearch

What is MeiliSearch?​

MeiliSearch is a fast, open-source search engine built for developer experience: typo tolerance, instant results, and a simple REST API. It's a popular Laravel Scout driver for adding full-text search without the operational overhead of Elasticsearch.

Start MeiliSearch​

./laradock start meilisearch

Your indexes are created on first start and kept between restarts under DATA_PATH_HOST/meilisearch. Name any other services alongside it to start them together, for example ./laradock start meilisearch workspace.

Stop MeiliSearch​

Stopping just pauses the container; your indexes are safe:

./laradock stop meilisearch

To delete the container entirely (the data on disk is still untouched, it lives under DATA_PATH_HOST):

./laradock remove meilisearch

Configuration​

All settings live in meilisearch/defaults.env and can be overridden by adding the same line to your own .env:

VariableDefaultWhat it does
MEILISEARCH_HOST_PORT7700Host-side port MeiliSearch is published on (container port 7700).
MEILISEARCH_KEYmasterkeyPassed to the container as MEILI_MASTER_KEY, the admin key for the instance.

Note the image itself isn't version-pinned in meilisearch/compose.yml, it always pulls getmeili/meilisearch:latest.

Connect​

Open http://localhost:7700 for the built-in web UI, or point Laravel Scout / any HTTP client at that same URL with the master key masterkey (or your own MEILISEARCH_KEY) as the API key. From another container use http://meilisearch:7700.

Check health and stats​

Before debugging a "search isn't working" issue in your app, confirm the engine itself is healthy:

curl http://localhost:7700/health
curl http://localhost:7700/version
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer masterkey" http://localhost:7700/stats

/health returns {"status":"available"} when it's ready to take requests. /stats (needs the master key) reports database size and per-index document counts, useful for spotting an index that silently stopped growing or a database approaching disk limits.

Backup and restore​

MeiliSearch's entire database (indexes, settings, tasks) lives in the single folder mounted at DATA_PATH_HOST/meilisearch (container path /data.ms), so the simplest reliable backup is a filesystem copy taken while the container is stopped:

./laradock stop meilisearch
cp -a "${DATA_PATH_HOST:-~/.laradock/data}/meilisearch" ./meilisearch-backup

Then start it back up:

./laradock start meilisearch

To restore, stop the container, replace the contents of DATA_PATH_HOST/meilisearch with your backup folder, then start it again. For a live backup without downtime, MeiliSearch also exposes a dumps API (POST /dumps), useful when you can't afford to stop the container but want a point-in-time export.

Start completely fresh (wipe all data)​

To throw away every index and start MeiliSearch from a clean, empty state (⚠️ this permanently deletes everything in this instance, back up first if you need anything):

./laradock stop meilisearch
./laradock remove meilisearch
rm -rf "${DATA_PATH_HOST:-~/.laradock/data}/meilisearch"
./laradock start meilisearch

DATA_PATH_HOST is whatever you have set in .env (~/.laradock/data by default), so the folder above is where MeiliSearch's indexes actually live on your machine. After this, re-index your app's searchable models (for Laravel Scout, php artisan scout:import "App\\Models\\YourModel").

Pin a specific version​

meilisearch/compose.yml always pulls getmeili/meilisearch:latest, there's no MEILISEARCH_VERSION variable to set in .env. For a reproducible setup, edit the image: line in meilisearch/compose.yml directly to a specific tag, for example getmeili/meilisearch:v1.9, then rebuild:

./laradock rebuild meilisearch

Talk to this search index from another Laradock project​

Each Laradock project is its own isolated Docker network by default, so a second project's containers can't reach this MeiliSearch by container name out of the box. Easiest fix: publish the port (already done, MEILISEARCH_HOST_PORT) and have the other project connect to your host machine's address instead of meilisearch, for example MEILISEARCH_HOST=http://host.docker.internal:7700 (Docker Desktop). Make sure the two projects use different MEILISEARCH_HOST_PORT values if they're both running at once.

Common issues​

  • 401/403 on every request. You need the master key as a Bearer token (Authorization: Bearer masterkey) for any write or protected endpoint.
  • Master key changed but old key still works, or vice versa. MeiliSearch reads MEILI_MASTER_KEY at container start; restart the container (./laradock restart meilisearch) after changing MEILISEARCH_KEY in .env.
  • Image updates unexpectedly. Because meilisearch/compose.yml pins :latest rather than reading a version variable, a plain docker compose pull can bump you to a new MeiliSearch major version. Pin a specific tag yourself if you need reproducibility.
  • Index looks stale or empty after a Scout sync. Check /stats (see Check health and stats) to confirm documents actually landed, then re-run php artisan scout:import for the affected model.
  • App can't connect but the container is running. Use the container name meilisearch, not localhost, from inside another container.

Prefer typo-tolerant search with more filtering options? See Typesense. New to Laradock? Start with Getting Started.