Nosto Search uses product and user behavior data from the Nosto Platform, so if you are implementing Nosto Search, first of all, you need to implement Nosto Platform to your website (see https://docs.nosto.com/techdocs/implementing-nosto/implement-on-your-website). Your search engine will be ready after the Nosto representative enables the Search module for your account. Then you will need to integrate Nosto Search to the website.
There are 2 ways to implement Nosto Search to a website:
Frontend integration - by using a pre-built template that can be customized to fully match a website's design using built-in code editor directly in https://my.nosto.com/. In the code editor, you can fully customize the pre-built template's JavaScript, HTML, and CSS code. Changes to the template can be implemented either by client’s developers or Nosto team. Frontend integration uses Preact and JSX templates and renders search results page dynamically in website’s frontend, so no additional integration is needed to the backend. When using Nosto services, no development is needed from the client. Here is the developer documentation for customizing frontend integration - https://docs.nosto.com/techdocs/implementing-nosto/getting-started-with-nosto-search.
API integration - a robust Search GraphQL API allows to implement Nosto Search into any website or app and gives complete flexibility for developers to build frontend and backend features. Here is the developer documentation: https://docs.nosto.com/techdocs/implementing-nosto/getting-started-with-search/implement-using-graphql-api
| Code editor with pre-built template | API |
Can be implemented by Nosto team | Yes | No |
Expected time to launch live | 1-3 weeks | 3-8 weeks |
Headless compatible | Yes | Yes |
Fully customizable frontend | Yes, in our code editor | Yes, by connecting to API |
Customized and managed only in Nosto admin UI | Yes | No |
Suitable for complex use cases | Sometimes | Yes |
Looking at the comparison table, we recommend going with fully customizable pre-built template if you are looking for a fast launch without much effort.
With both Frontend and API integration, you have complete control over the search frontend and can fully match the website's design. Frontend integration may be easier to launch quickly because it has almost working out of the box search page and autocomplete templates that can be easily customized with our code editor to match website's design. However, if the search page design is quite complex and requires custom logic, it may be worth considering using API integration as it may be difficult to implement complex logic using built-in code editor.