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Relevanssi Live Ajax Search icon
Maintained Tested up to 7.0.6 #8 in ajax

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search

Template powered live search for any WordPress theme. Compatible with Relevanssi search!

Active installs7K+5K+ tier
Downloads · 30d2.5K▼ -14.9% vs prev. 30d
Rating5/59 reviews
Health score58/100Fair
All-time downloads102.5KSince Jan 2022
Support resolved0 / 10% in last 2 months
RequiresWP 4.9PHP 7.0+
Downloads · 7d632▼ -0.9% week over week
Our verdict

Use with caution

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search works, but test it on a staging site before relying on it in 2026. It runs on 7K+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 5 months ago, and scores 58/100 on our health check.

How does it stack up?

Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support

Daily downloads

4080120Jun 28Aug 11Sep 25
Yesterday95
Daily average (1y)81
Peak day1,641May 12, 2026
Last 12 months29.5K

Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.

Rankings

Where Relevanssi Live Ajax Search stands today

WordPress.org search rankings

Live position in the plugin search, top 100
KeywordPositionCompeting pluginsCategory
ajax #9 8,094 Best ajax plugins →
live #9 10,000 Best live plugins →
search #25 10,000 Best search plugins →

Version adoption

Share of active sites per release.

  • 2.674.4%
  • 2.521.0%
  • Other4.5%

Rating breakdown

★★★★★★★★★★ 5 from 9 reviews

  • 5★100.0%
  • 4★0.00%
  • 3★0.00%
  • 2★0.00%
  • 1★0.00%

About Relevanssi Live Ajax Search

From the official readme · v2.6

Description

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search enables ajax live search for your search forms. It won’t swamp you with settings, and generally, Relevanssi Live Ajax Search works without any modifications necessary. If you want to customize it, you have complete control over how it works and what it does.

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search displays the search results using templates. You can easily override the default templates from your theme to make the results look the way you want them to look.

Works best with Relevanssi

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search only provides you with live search results. To get really good results, use Relevanssi, Relevanssi Premium or Relevanssi Light. Relevanssi Live Ajax Search automatically uses Relevanssi to power the search results if Relevanssi is installed and active. However, you don’t need Relevanssi; Relevanssi Live Ajax Search also works with the default WP search.

Changes from SearchWP Live Ajax Search

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search is a fork of SearchWP Live Ajax Search. I forked it from version 1.6.1 because it looked like SearchWP Live Ajax Search wasn’t getting updates anymore. I also wanted to improve the Relevanssi compatibility.

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search drops all SearchWP compatibility. You can use SearchWP Live Ajax Search, which has built-in SearchWP support.

The widget has also been removed. It was unnecessary and outdated.

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search can now take over the Gutenberg core/search search form.

This plugin is on GitHub

Feel free to open up issues at
https://github.com/msaari/relevanssi-live-ajax-search.

Installation

  1. Install the plugin from the WordPress plugin screen.
  2. Activate the plugin.
  3. That’s it! Most of the time, that’s all you need.

If Relevanssi Live Ajax Search does not automatically attach itself to your search form, you can enable it by adding a single HTML5 data attribute (data-rlvlive="true") to the input field of your search form. You can find more information in the plugin documentation.

Frequently asked questions

How do I create a custom search results template

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search uses a template loader, making it easy to replace the search results. There is a templates folder in the plugin folder, which includes search-results.php. This file is the template used to output search results. To customize the search results: Create a folder called relevanssi-live-ajax-search in your theme directory. Copy the search-results.php file into the new folder. Relevanssi Live Ajax Search will now use that file to show the results. If you want to override the default CSS styles, you can remove them this way: add_filter(…

I’m using Astra, Storefront, or Divi, and this plugin doesn’t work

It does, Astra search form is just designed in a way that hides the search results. You can find solutions in the plugin documentation. The easiest solution is adding this to your theme functions.php: add_filter( 'relevanssi_live_search_add_result_div', '__return_false' );

I want to change the number of results shown

There’s a filter for that! Add this to your theme functions.php or in a code snippet: add_filter( 'relevanssi_live_search_posts_per_page', function() { return 10; } ); This will show 10 results. You can adjust the number as you wish.

I’m using WPML and get no results!

For some reason, the combination of Relevanssi Live Ajax Search, Relevanssi and WPML leads to problems. To solve this problem, use the WP_Query mode of fetching the results. To activate the mode, add this to your theme functions.php: add_filter( 'relevanssi_live_search_mode', function() { return 'wp_query'; } ); This will make Relevanssi Live Ajax Search use a different method of fetching the results. This method is compatible with WPML. This method uses the search-results-query.php template instead of the default search-results.php template in Relevanssi Live Ajax Search, so take note if you…

Changelog

Security update to tighten privacy, new filter hooks.

2.6

  • Security update: This plugin could be used for blind oracle attacks to find out information on private posts. This has been blocked.
  • New feature: Post type, post ID and term ID are now added to the results template as data attributes for better CSS targeting. Contributor: Marco Almeida.
  • New feature: New filter hook relevanssi_live_search_result_arrow filters the » arrow in the search results. Contributor: Marco Almeida.
  • New feature: Action hooks relevanssi_live_search_before_result, relevanssi_live_search_before_result_link, relevanssi_live_search_before_result_title, relevanssi_live_search_after_result_title, relevanssi_live_search_after_result_link, relevanssi_live_search_after_result allow you to inject content to the search results without modifying the template. Contributor: Marco Almeida.

Full changelog on WordPress.org →

For developers

Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.

Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.

Active installs badge Rating badge Health score badge

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FAQ

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search: quick answers

Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.

Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 26, 2026

Is Relevanssi Live Ajax Search free?

Yes. Relevanssi Live Ajax Search is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.

Is Relevanssi Live Ajax Search safe to use in 2026?

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search works, but test it on a staging site before relying on it in 2026. It runs on 7K+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 5 months ago, and scores 58/100 on our health check.

How many websites use Relevanssi Live Ajax Search?

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search is active on 7K+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 102,450 times since it launched in January 2022. It was downloaded 2,492 times in the last 30 days.

Does Relevanssi Live Ajax Search work with WordPress 7.1?

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search is officially tested up to WordPress 7.0.6, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.

What PHP version does Relevanssi Live Ajax Search need?

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search requires PHP 7.0 or higher. Most hosts run PHP 8.x today, so it works on any modern WordPress hosting.

When was Relevanssi Live Ajax Search last updated?

The latest version, 2.6, was released on May 12, 2026 (5 months ago).

Who makes Relevanssi Live Ajax Search?

Relevanssi Live Ajax Search is developed and maintained by Christoph Vielgrader.

What are the best alternatives to Relevanssi Live Ajax Search?

The most popular alternatives to Relevanssi Live Ajax Search are zipaddr-jp (50K+ installs), SearchWP Live Ajax Search (50K+ installs) and WP-Polls (40K+ installs).

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