# IntentSea Search and Shopify Search & Discovery

> An honest comparison of IntentSea Search with Shopify's own Search & Discovery app, and when each one is the better choice.

Source: https://intentsea.com/guides/shopify-search-and-discovery-alternative

Shopify provides its own free **Search & Discovery** app. For many small stores it is enough. This page explains where IntentSea Search is different, so you can choose without guessing. Check Shopify's listing for what its app currently includes.

## When Shopify's own app is enough

- Your catalogue is small and shoppers usually find products with simple queries.
- You mostly need standard filters and a few synonym groups.
- You do not need to see why a query returned few results.

## When IntentSea Search may fit better

| Need | IntentSea Search |
|---|---|
| Vietnamese or mixed-language catalogues | Accent-insensitive matching and Vietnamese/English admin and widget |
| See what shoppers could not find | Analytics with top searches and zero-result queries |
| Control over ranking | Pin, boost, hide, bury or redirect results, with scheduling; ranking signals such as inventory, newness, discount and sales trend |
| Test before you commit | A/B experiments on ranking with revenue per search |
| Smarter queries on larger catalogues | Optional semantic search, product attributes and natural-language filters (Pro and Scale) |
| Predictable cost | Free plan, then $9.90 to $99.90 per month, billed by Shopify |

## What stays the same

The app does not modify your products, orders or customers. It is switched on with an app embed in the theme editor, and you can turn it off at any time.

## How to decide

Start with Shopify's app. If you see many searches with no results, want to steer what appears first, or sell in Vietnamese, try IntentSea Search on the Free plan and compare the search analytics for a few weeks.

See [pricing](https://intentsea.com/guides/pricing) and [AI search](https://intentsea.com/guides/ai-search).