Query DSL

elasticsearch provides a full Query DSL based on JSON to define queries. In general, there are basic queries such as term or prefix. There are also compound queries like the bool query. Queries can also have filters associated with them such as the filtered or constant_score queries, with specific filter queries.

Think of the Query DSL as an AST of queries. Certain queries can contain other queries (like the bool query), others can contain filters (like the constant_score), and some can contain both a query and a filter (like the filtered). Each of those can contain any query of the list of queries or any filter from the list of filters, resulting in the ability to build quite complex (and interesting) queries.

Both queries and filters can be used in different APIs. For example, within a search query, or as a facet filter. This section explains the components (queries and filters) that can form the AST one can use.

Filters are very handy since they perform an order of magnitude better than plain queries since no scoring is performed and they are automatically cached.