Installing Elasticsearch
editInstalling Elasticsearch
editHosted Elasticsearch Service
editElastic Cloud offers all of the features of Elasticsearch, Kibana, and Elastic’s Observability, Enterprise Search, and Elastic Security solutions as a hosted service available on AWS, GCP, and Azure.
To set up Elasticsearch in Elastic Cloud, sign up for a free Elastic Cloud trial.
Self-managed Elasticsearch options
editIf you want to install and manage Elasticsearch yourself, you can:
- Run Elasticsearch using a Linux, MacOS, or Windows install package.
- Run Elasticsearch in a Docker container.
- Set up and manage Elasticsearch, Kibana, Elastic Agent, and the rest of the Elastic Stack on Kubernetes with Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes.
To try out Elasticsearch on your own machine, we recommend using Docker and running both Elasticsearch and Kibana. For more information, see Run Elasticsearch locally. Please note that this setup is not suitable for production use.
Elasticsearch install packages
editElasticsearch is provided in the following package formats:
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For a step-by-step example of setting up the Elastic Stack on your own premises, try out our tutorial: Installing a self-managed Elastic Stack.
Elasticsearch container images
editYou can also run Elasticsearch inside a container image.
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Docker container images may be downloaded from the Elastic Docker Registry. |
Java (JVM) Version
editElasticsearch is built using Java, and includes a bundled version of OpenJDK within each distribution. We strongly recommend using the bundled JVM in all installations of Elasticsearch.
The bundled JVM is treated the same as any other dependency of Elasticsearch in terms of support and maintenance. This means that Elastic takes responsibility for keeping it up to date, and reacts to security issues and bug reports as needed to address vulnerabilities and other bugs in Elasticsearch. Elastic’s support of the bundled JVM is subject to Elastic’s support policy and end-of-life schedule and is independent of the support policy and end-of-life schedule offered by the original supplier of the JVM. Elastic does not support using the bundled JVM for purposes other than running Elasticsearch.
Elasticsearch uses only a subset of the features offered by the JVM. Bugs and security issues in the bundled JVM often relate to features that Elasticsearch does not use. Such issues do not apply to Elasticsearch. Elastic analyzes reports of security vulnerabilities in all its dependencies, including in the bundled JVM, and will issue an Elastic Security Advisory if such an advisory is needed.
If you decide to run Elasticsearch using a version of Java that is different from the bundled one, prefer to use the latest release of a LTS version of Java which is listed in the support matrix. Although such a configuration is supported, if you encounter a security issue or other bug in your chosen JVM then Elastic may not be able to help unless the issue is also present in the bundled JVM. Instead, you must seek assistance directly from the supplier of your chosen JVM. You must also take responsibility for reacting to security and bug announcements from the supplier of your chosen JVM. Elasticsearch may not perform optimally if using a JVM other than the bundled one. Elasticsearch is closely coupled to certain OpenJDK-specific features, so it may not work correctly with JVMs that are not OpenJDK. Elasticsearch will refuse to start if you attempt to use a known-bad JVM version.
To use your own version of Java, set the ES_JAVA_HOME environment variable to the path to your own JVM installation. The bundled JVM is
located within the jdk subdirectory of the Elasticsearch home directory. You may remove this directory if using your own JVM.
JDK locale database
editThe locale database used by Elasticsearch, used to map from various date formats to the underlying date storage format, depends on the version of the JDK that Elasticsearch is running on. On JDK version 23 and above, Elasticsearch will use the CLDR database. On JDK version 22 and below, Elasticsearch will use the COMPAT database. This may mean that the strings used for textual date formats, and the output of custom week-date formats, may change when moving from a previous JDK version to JDK 23 or above. For more information, see custom date formats.
JVM and Java agents
editDon’t use third-party Java agents that attach to the JVM. These agents can reduce Elasticsearch performance, including freezing or crashing nodes.