Definition
Elasticsearch, by Elastic, is an open-source search and analytics engine used for ecommerce search, observability, logging, and more, including keyword and vector (semantic) search.
What Elasticsearch does
It indexes and searches large volumes of data at speed, and is widely used as the engine behind ecommerce site search as well as many analytics and observability use cases. It supports both traditional and vector-based search.
How it relates to catalog intelligence
Elasticsearch powers product search over catalog data, so its relevance is only as good as the data indexed. Catalog intelligence improves the completeness and consistency of the product data that search engines index, filter, and rank.