What is Laravel SmartSearch?

Laravel SmartSearch is a powerful, production-ready Laravel search package that provides a unified search API across Elasticsearch, Laravel Scout, and database full-text search — a true Laravel Scout alternative with more flexibility. Built by Fatehi AL-AGHBARI, it solves the common pain points teams face when adding search to Laravel applications — complex setup, vendor lock-in, and brittle fallback logic.

Whether you need Elasticsearch for Laravel, a Laravel Scout alternative, or database search for Laravel, SmartSearch gives you one clean Laravel search API that works everywhere. The Eloquent search layer integrates directly with your models for zero-friction indexing.

Why Laravel SmartSearch?

Integrating search for Laravel applications often means:

• Hard-coding Elasticsearch queries
• Breaking changes when switching providers
• No safety net when the search engine goes down
• Painful multilingual setup (especially Arabic)

SmartSearch fixes all of this:

Features

• Unified Laravel search API — Search::for(Model::class)->query('term')->get()
• Full text search for Laravel — works out of the box with database search, no extra packages
• Eloquent search — trait-based, integrates directly with your models
• Database search Laravel — LIKE / ILIKE auto-detects MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, SQL Server
• Elasticsearch for Laravel — high-performance dedicated search, install only if needed
• Laravel Scout alternative — drop-in compatible, works with Algolia, MeiliSearch, Typesense
• Search indexing — queue-driven on model created/updated/deleted
• Automatic safe fallback — if Elasticsearch/Scout is down, falls back to database
• Arabic search for Laravel — built-in normalization for Arabic content
• Multilingual search — configurable analyzers for any language
• Driver-based architecture — Strategy Pattern, extensible
• Works with any database — MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, SQL Server, no breaking changes
• Laravel 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 — full backward compatibility

Installation

No extra dependencies required. This Laravel search package works immediately with database search.

composer require aghfatehi/laravel-smartsearch

Publish the config (optional):

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=smartsearch-config

Optional drivers: To use Elasticsearch for Laravel, run composer require elasticsearch/elasticsearch. To use Laravel Scout, run composer require laravel/scout. The package handles both gracefully without breaking.

Quick Setup

1. Add the trait to your model

use SmartSearch\Traits\Searchable;

class Product extends Model
{
    use Searchable;

    protected $searchable = ['name', 'description', 'price'];
}

2. (Optional) Configure your driver

The default driver is database — works immediately with your existing database. To switch to Elasticsearch:

SMARTSEARCH_DRIVER=elasticsearch
SMARTSEARCH_FALLBACK=database

That's it.

Usage

Basic search

use SmartSearch\Facades\Search;

$results = Search::for(Product::class)
    ->query('iphone')
    ->get();

Search with filters

$results = Search::for(Product::class)
    ->query('iphone')
    ->where('price', '<', 5000)
    ->where('brand', 'Apple')
    ->get();

Paginated search

$results = Search::for(Product::class)
    ->query('laptop')
    ->paginate(20);

Eloquent-style shortcut

Product::search('iphone')->get();

Helper function

smartSearch(Product::class, 'iphone')->get();

Auto Indexing

SmartSearch hooks into Eloquent events to keep your search index in sync automatically:

All operations are queue-based (non-blocking) and configurable.

Safe Database Fallback

When your primary search engine (Elasticsearch / Scout) is unavailable:

// No special error handling needed
$results = Search::for(Product::class)->query('iphone')->get();
// Automatically falls back to database search

The database driver auto-detects your database engine:

Arabic & Multilingual Search

Full Arabic search for Laravel and multilingual search support out of the box:

use SmartSearch\Support\ArabicNormalizer;

ArabicNormalizer::normalize('مُحَمَّد'); // محمد
ArabicNormalizer::normalize('أحمد إبراهيم آدم'); // احمد ابراهيم ادم

Configurable Elasticsearch analyzer for any language:

// config/smartsearch.php
'elasticsearch' => [
    'analyzer' => 'arabic', // or 'standard', 'english', custom, etc.
],

Driver System

Configuration

// config/smartsearch.php
return [
    'driver' => env('SMARTSEARCH_DRIVER', 'elasticsearch'),
    'fallback' => env('SMARTSEARCH_FALLBACK', 'database'),
    'queue' => env('SMARTSEARCH_QUEUE', true),
    'connection' => env('SMARTSEARCH_CONNECTION', 'default'),
    'elasticsearch' => [
        'hosts' => explode(',', env('ELASTICSEARCH_HOSTS', 'localhost:9200')),
        'analyzer' => env('ELASTICSEARCH_ANALYZER', 'standard'),
    ],
    'index_prefix' => env('SMARTSEARCH_INDEX_PREFIX', ''),
];

Architecture

Built on clean architecture principles:

• Strategy Pattern for drivers
• Service Container binding
• Event-driven indexing
• SOLID principles throughout

Laravel Application
    |
    v
Laravel SmartSearch Layer
    |
    v
+---------------------------------------------+
| DatabaseDriver (default - works OOB)        |
| ElasticsearchDriver (optional high-perf)    |
| ScoutDriver (optional - Algolia, Meili...)  |
+---------------------------------------------+
| Automatic safe fallback between drivers     |
+---------------------------------------------+

Use Cases

• E-commerce search — product search with filters and faceting
• ERP systems — search across invoices, customers, orders
• SaaS platforms — multi-tenant search (coming soon)
• Real estate listings — full-text property search
• Document management — search titles, descriptions, content
• Arabic content platforms — normalized Arabic search for Laravel

Requirements

• PHP 8.1+
• Laravel 9.x / 10.x / 11.x / 12.x / 13.x
• Database MySQL / PostgreSQL / SQLite / SQL Server (any Laravel-supported database)
• Elasticsearch 7.x+ (only if using the Elasticsearch driver — optional)

Contributing

1. Fork the repo
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/my-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add my feature')
4. Push (git push origin feature/my-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

Support

If this Laravel search package helps you:

• Star the repository on GitHub
• Report issues
• Share with the Laravel community
• Looking for an Elasticsearch Laravel or database search solution? This is it.

License

MIT License. Free for personal and commercial use.