The State of Site Search in Higher Education Research Report with The Chronicle of Higher Education | Download the Report
The State of Site Search in Higher Education Research Report with The Chronicle of Higher Education | Download the Report
A Sitecore Search alternative that matches the frequency of your content updates

A Sitecore Search alternative that matches the frequency of your content updates

Website experience teams move fast in creating content, and their site search needs to match. SearchStax offers a direct connector for Sitecore XP and Sitecore XM that makes all content updates instantly findable, not even Sitecore has such a robust connector. 

SearchStax’s Sitecore connector ensures that your search results and index are updated in near real-time when publishing content to XP or XM. That means no complicated processes to make your new content discoverable through your search bar.

Note, that for Sitecore XM Cloud both SearchStax and Sitecore will rely on a scheduled crawl to make those search index updates.

Simplicity in search adjustments makes the difference

Simplicity in search adjustments makes the difference

Ensuring your most relevant, high converting pages show up at the top of search results shouldn’t take more than a couple of clicks.

SearchStax Site Search allows you to easily adjust relevance, boost results and promote key pages to personalize your visitors’ experience. AI-powered features like Smart Match Assist and Smart Ranking use natural language processing and advanced language processing to understand the deeper meaning of visitors’ searches and better connect them with the content they’re looking for.

The search adjustment experience in Sitecore Search is robust. But with that comes some additional complexity. For instance, Sitecore Search equips you with the ability to do things like “lift X result 3 positions” so it appears higher than its original organic spot.

This is great for instant impact on a focused scale. But this does not guarantee that the result in question will be at the top of that results page, which is often the point of promoting or boosting a result. Over time, this becomes complex to manage as your content scales.

UX/UI that’s loved by developers

UX/UI that’s loved by developers

Creating a UX/UI experience that’s as powerful as your underlying search technology should not be a heavy lift. Both SearchStax Site Search and Sitecore Search offer Javascript UI kits to get developers up and running. Beyond that, building with Sitecore Search is more of a manual experience.

Setting up an engaging search solution with SearchStax Site Search is easy with Search UI Kits, APIs and native connectors for multiple CMSs, including Sitecore and Drupal.

Development and design teams can easily deliver, iterate and improve search experiences while providing a seamless visual experience and easy deployment.

Underlying costs of “free” site search with XM Cloud

Underlying costs of “free” site search with XM Cloud

When it comes to cost, SearchStax delivers value. We provide robust tools designed to maximize your return on investment. Our solutions empower marketers to upgrade their site search quickly and see results sooner.
Sitecore Search is often offered as “free” or deeply discounted in bundles with XM Cloud. This is an attractive prospect if you’re considering your total cost of ownership and have search included with your Sitecore instance.

The tradeoff in choosing Sitecore Search is a heavier implementation lift and onboarding that can often stretch to 6 months or more and require an agency implementation partner. With SearchStax, you’re up and running in a matter of weeks, not months.

Stay on the pulse of your visitors’ search behavior with analytics

Stay on the pulse of search behavior with analytics and AI recommendations

Making informed decisions for improving website experiences starts with analytics. SearchStax Site Search includes a dashboard of actionable metrics that shows you exactly how your visitors are interacting with your onsite search.

From Popular Searches, to Click-Through Rate, to No Results Searches and much more, you learn exactly what people are looking for, in their own words. From there, SearchStax Site Search gives you AI recommendations for how to fix issues and optimize your search results right within the dashboard. And it’s as simple as the user accepting or ignoring those AI suggestions with a simple click.

This takes the manual lift of search adjustments off developers’ plates and empowers your web experience team to make meaningful adjustments backed by analytics and AI.

When considering a Sitecore Search alternative, see what our customers have to say

SearchStax has a 4.5 out of 5 rating on G2. Read reviews from some of our happy customers.

Sabina F. 

Software Engineer
Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

“The SearchStax Site Search product has amazing functionality that has been easy to integrate with Sitecore. We gained valuable insight into how our customers use the search features on the website and what they are searching for (through the excellent analytics provided by the dashboard), which made the search experience easier to personalise. 

We wanted to use the product to manage searching on a multilingual website, a feature that wasn’t available when we started the implementation. However, when we mentioned the business need for this, the team assured us they were working on it, and, sure enough, they released the multi-language feature and helped us integrate it. The team was always very receptive to feedback and, as a result, even released a new feature in a matter of weeks when we presented a client use case for it.”

Gopikrishna Reddy G. 

Small-Business

What do you like best about SearchStax?

“SearchStax  is instrumental and quick to build search pages with the provided UX accelerators.

  1. It always integrates very well with Sitecore. Simple package installation, rapid to populate the schema and rebuild the index.
  2. Our Marketing team loves the option to update stopwords, synonyms, spell check and auto-suggest words themselves without any help from the technical team.
  3. Very easy to consume the provided developer APIs.
  4. Developer and User documentation have been excellent and easy to follow and understand.
  5. Team is quick to help with any queries and issues.

It helped build the Search page very quickly without many customizations. We could reduce lots of development effort and save time during the implementation. As it is a SaaS product, we are off from the maintenance burden. Marketers can make all their changes without much help from the technical team. Rich analytics are helping to understand better what our customers are searching for.”

Verified User in Marketing and Advertising

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

“I really like the Searches Dashboard. I like how it is set up by popular searches, no result searches and searches with no clicks. I like to see the search count and percentages. I like control of the stopwords. I like how we were able to incorporate a better filter system for our directory. I like the great customer support we have been given with directory features. I use it daily.”

Taela W.

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

“We have been searching for a quality product like this for a while – especially one that integrates well with Sitecore – and this product has fulfilled all our requirements and some. I am looking forward to seeing this product grow and drive more business our way. The team there are super friendly and very knowledgeable – every question has been addressed and they are so efficient with their responses. We needed a search engine that went the extra mile for our users. Now that everyone is so used to the Google service, they expect the same level from all websites. This product is as good as we will get and we are so happy with it.”

Shawn H.

Web Specialist
Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

“I like best the ease of use and the robust feature set that SearchStax offers. The platform is intuitive, making it easy to manage and optimize our search functionality without requiring extensive technical knowledge. Additionally, their customer support is responsive and helpful, which has made our experience even better.”

Randall W.

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

“The SearchStax team actively listens to our feedback and has implemented features that have significantly enhanced the value of their tools. They continuously introduce new capabilities, such as machine learning and AI, which have greatly improved our users’ ability to quickly and easily find content. Our customer representative regularly reviews our analytics and provides valuable recommendations for optimizing our search functionality.”

Key Takeaways​

Key Takeaways

SearchStax Site Search is best for web teams and marketers who want a seamless and efficient site search implementation for their Sitecore instance, while maintaining controls that don’t bog down their IT teams. Unify data from multiple sources into a single search experience, including outside of Sitecore, with ease. It’s also the right choice for teams on XM and XP who are publishing content at a high velocity and want to ensure that content is indexed and findable right away.

Sitecore Search is best for organizations who have the feature bundled in their Sitecore XM Cloud and have a dedicated technical team with the ongoing bandwidth to take advantage of detailed and time-intensive adjustment controls.

Ready to upgrade onsite search for your Sitecore website?

FAQ: SearchStax Site Search vs. Sitecore Search

What are SearchStax Site Search and Sitecore Search?
  • SearchStax Site Search is an onsite website search platform and AI-powered search solution designed to improve website search experiences with advanced relevance tuning, analytics and marketing agility for content-rich websites. Site Search works with any CMS platform, with a specialized real-time connector to Sitecore XM and Sitecore XP.
  • Sitecore Search is a search solution originally designed for ecommerce sites and adapted for Sitecore-content websites and leverages AI-driven search capabilities
How do the two solutions compare in terms of ease of implementation?
  • SearchStax Site Search is designed for fast deployment with UI Kits in developer’s favorite frameworks including Vue, Angular, Next.js and React with code samples and well-documented APIs for richly customized search experiences.
  • Sitecore Search Implementation and customization often require technical expertise in Sitecore development.
Which solution offers more flexibility in customization and tuning?
  • SearchStax Site Search provides granular control over relevance tuning with a user-friendly UI, enabling quick adjustments to optimize search results without code. It also supports extensive API-based customization.
  • Sitecore Search includes AI-driven relevance but is more tailored toward ecommerce applications and requires coding to make simple or advanced changes.
How do analytics and reporting compare?
  • SearchStax Site Search includes detailed search analytics and insights that allow users to track search behavior, identify gaps and optimize search experiences continuously with AI recommendations that can be accepted or ignored by in-house experts.
  • Sitecore Search provides analytics but is primarily focused on Sitecore’s content ecosystem. Insights may require additional developer setup for deeper analysis.
Can both solutions handle AI-powered personalization?
  • Yes, both solutions offer AI-powered search and personalization
    • SearchStax Site Search allows real-time adjustments and personalized experiences using behavioral data, with an emphasis on marketer-friendly controls.
    • Sitecore Search leverages AI personalization and works best within the broader Sitecore Digital Experience Platform (DXP).
Which solution is more cost-effective?
  • SearchStax Site Search typically offers more scalable pricing, making it accessible to a wider range of businesses, including those using Sitecore but not fully invested in Sitecore’s broader ecosystem.
  • Sitecore Search may get bundled within Sitecore XM Cloud, and pricing can be complex depending on the modules included in the subscription.
Can I use SearchStax Site Search with Sitecore?
  • Yes. SearchStax Site Search can integrate with Sitecore XM, XP and Sitecore XM Cloud, offering a powerful alternative to Sitecore Search while allowing users to benefit from advanced relevance tuning, analytics and customization.
What is the best option for a Sitecore user looking for better control over search?
  • If a Sitecore user wants more control over search relevance, deeper analytics and a solution that allows them to make simple changes with no code, SearchStax Site Search is a strong alternative.
  • If a business is deeply embedded in Sitecore’s broader DXP and prefers an out-of-the-box, search experience within that ecosystem, Sitecore Search might be the right fit.