Can Elasticsearch be disabled in Magento 2?

Elasticsearch is obligatory after Magento 2.4 release so it can't be disabled. But there are some ways how you can significantly improve its performance using our Elastic Search extension. It is optimized for all devices and will help you improve your SERP to increment your add-to-cart rate.

Configuring the Magento 2 ElasticSearch extension

Step 1. First off, you need to set up the connection. For this, navigate to Admin Panel > Stores >  Configuration > Elastic Search > Connection:

Step 2. Select the Amasty ElasticSearch in the Search Engine dropdown.

Step 3. Then, indicate the Elasticsearch Server Hostname by entering the ElasticSearch running machine IP address.

Step 4. Define the Elasticsearch Server Port.

Step 5. Configure the particular Elasticsearch Index Prefix for every store you implement the elastic search for.

Step 6. Set Yes in the Elasticsearch HTTP Auth dropdown if verification for your Elasticsearch server is enabled and fulfill the shown lines by your authentication data.

Step 7. If you need, set the time for Elasticsearch Server Timeout.

Step 8. Test the connection. If it is successful, then you’ve done everything right.

After that, you need to set Autocomplete suggestions & Spelling correction.

Step 1. Navigate to Admin Panel > Stores > Configuration > Elastic Search > Catalog:

Step 2. In the Wildcard Type field, choose from 3 options for the part of the word that will be automatically filled in.

Step 3. Then write the number of characters to Enable Wildcard After.

Step 4. Then  define when to Enable Spell Correction by entering the number of characters.

Step 5. In the Max Number of Search Results field, you can write your own maximum number of elements in the search results or leave it 0 to use the preset Magento value.

Step 6. In the next dropdown, you can set Yes to Allow Special Characters which is useful when a customer uses a highly specific search phrase and words that contain slashes, hyphens, dashes, or any other non-alphabetic symbols.

Step 7. The last thing here is to configure Advanced Query Settings. Just choose your preferences for each attribute. 

And remember that if you need to add a product attribute to a search query configuration you need to do the following:

Navigate to Admin Panel > Stores > Attributes > Product > Choose a product attribute you want > click Storefront Properties > Enable Use in Search.

After that, you have to fulfill the Indexation Settings fields according to your needs and choose whether you want to enable Debug.

That's it. Check the user guide for more details about extension settings.

Are there any ways to disable Elasticsearch in Magento 2?

Magento 2 disable Elasticsearch feature is not available if you have upgraded to Magento 2.4 as it became obligatory to have Elasticsearch installed, and there is no way to get around this limitation. As Magento 2.4 disable Elasticsearch feature is not available since the 2.4 version of the platform, the only way to make changes with the Elasticsearch in the latest version of Magento 2 is to install third-party extensions.