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Measured in production

Wake times

A sleeping engine starts again on the next search. This is how long that takes on our production servers, over the last 30 days.

Each engine gets two numbers. The median is a typical wake: half were faster. The p95, short for 95th percentile, is the slow end: 95 in 100 wakes were faster.

Updated November 15, 2026, 17:07 UTC.

Median wake with the data on the server

The large number is the median. Under it, the p95: 95 in 100 wakes were faster than that.

Visor
150 msp95 293 ms · 70 wakes
Typesense
65 msp95 164 ms · 27 wakes
Meilisearch
168 msp95 376 ms · 111 wakes
Failed wakes
0Across every engine

By engine

Median and 95th percentile (p95)

Each line runs from the median wake to the p95.

Medianp95: 95 in 100 wakes were fasterToo few: under 10 wakes, no p95Logarithmic scale

Meilisearch

  • Data on the server111 wakesMedian 168 msp95 376 ms
  • Data from storage122 wakesMedian 811 msp95 2.0 s

TypesenseResumes from a memory snapshot

  • Data on the server27 wakesMedian 65 msp95 164 ms

Visor

  • Data on the server70 wakesMedian 150 msp95 293 ms
  • Data from storage21 wakesMedian 884 msp95 2.4 s

ElasticsearchSleeps only on forked branches; on main it is always on and never waits

  • Data on the server1 wakeMedian 11 sp95 too few
  • Data from storage6 wakesMedian 12 sp95 too few

All the numbers

All the numbers

  • MeilisearchData on the server111 wakes

    Median
    168 ms
    p95
    376 ms
    Slowest
    1.2 s
    First answer
    183 ms / 415 ms

  • MeilisearchData from storage122 wakes

    Median
    811 ms
    p95
    2.0 s
    Slowest
    5.1 s
    First answer
    1.1 s / 3.3 s

  • TypesenseData on the server27 wakes

    Median
    65 ms
    p95
    164 ms
    Slowest
    171 ms
    First answer
    70 ms / 176 ms

  • VisorData on the server70 wakes

    Median
    150 ms
    p95
    293 ms
    Slowest
    2.6 s
    First answer
    208 ms / 366 ms

  • VisorData from storage21 wakes

    Median
    884 ms
    p95
    2.4 s
    Slowest
    4.2 s
    First answer
    1.2 s / 2.5 s

  • ElasticsearchData on the server1 wake

    Median
    11 s
    p95
    Too few
    Slowest
    11 s
    First answer
    11 s / Too few

  • ElasticsearchData from storage6 wakes

    Median
    12 s
    p95
    Too few
    Slowest
    15 s
    First answer
    12 s / Too few

Failed wakes in the same 30 days: Meilisearch 0, Typesense 0, Visor 0, Elasticsearch 0.

What the numbers mean

Wake time
From the request that started the wake reaching our server to the engine being ready to answer. Your network is not included.
First answer
From the same moment to the first byte of the answer to that request. From storage it can come later, because the request may read data that is still being fetched.
Data on the server
The engine's disk is still on the server it slept on, so it only has to start. Sleeping Typesense resumes from a memory snapshot instead. This is almost every wake.
Data from storage
The server holds no copy of the engine's disk, after a move to another server or when a server needed the room. An engine on bucket storage starts while its data streams in. Any other engine is restored from its latest backup first.
Median and p95
Half of the wakes were faster than the median, and 95 in 100 were faster than the p95. A p95 needs at least 10 wakes; with fewer, the page says so.

What is counted

  • Every wake of a sleeping engine that a request waited for.
  • Left out: wakes nobody waited for, such as a warm call, and restarts after an engine crashed. Until November 30, 2026, the Meilisearch numbers still include four such restarts from our failover drills in late October, recorded as wakes before we could tell the two apart.
  • Most wakes so far are of our own test and drill engines, which hold small indexes. A much larger index can take longer to start.

During a wake

The search waits, then gets its answer as usual. We hold it for up to 10 seconds on Free and 25 seconds on paid plans on an engine's own endpoint, and 30 seconds through the REST API on paid plans. The cold starts docs say what happens past that.

An engine set to Always on never sleeps, so it never wakes. See pricing for what that costs on each plan.