Replacement search for self-hosted Confluence?

[Mike Ely]

Anyone who has enough data in their Confluence instance will know why I'm asking this question. I saw something that could be used for Confluence Cloud, and am (desperately!) hoping to find something that would replace the search engine in self-hosted editions.

Atlassian Team: Confluence search is bad enough that I'm starting to consider recommending we go back to MediaWiki. Finding information is, at the end of the day, far more important by far than having tie-ins to Jira and whatnot - and those tie-ins can be scripted into MediaWiki anyhow.

[Coltons River]

yeah, confluence search can be frustrating on self-hosted. some folks use plugins like “Refined” or “Scaffolding” to improve search, or even connect elasticsearch for better results. might be worth checking those out before switching platforms.

[Mia Tamm]

Hi @Mike Ely ,

I agree with @Brant Schroeder's  point. It’s worth first clarifying the specific issues you’re running into with Confluence search, as the approach might differ depending on whether it’s a matter of performance, relevance, or navigation. Label usage and content structure can make a big difference before considering a replacement engine.

If you are looking for an alternative search experience in self-hosted (Data Center) Confluence, the iFinder Search app that Brand linked is a solid option to explore. It’s designed specifically for improving search relevance, indexing speed, and filtering, and it integrates directly into Confluence’s UI.

If you share more details on your current setup — number of spaces/pages, how content is tagged, and the types of searches that fail — the community can help pinpoint whether a configuration tweak or a marketplace app would give you the best results.

— Mia Tamm from Simpleasyty

[Brant Schroeder]

@Mike Ely What specific issues are you having with search?  How many spaces and pages do you have?  How are you using labels in Confluence?  

There are apps like this in the marketplace https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1220508/ifinder-search-for-confluence?hosting=datacenter&tab=overview